Private investigators are using tracking devices to carry out surveillance on insurance customers suspected of making fraudulent claims.
The investigators are being investigated for placing spy equipment underneath cars belonging to unsuspecting policy holders.
Intelligence received by the new investigations unit in the Data Protection Commission also reveals insurance firms are handing over medical or consultants' reports to private firms they pay to spy on customers.
Tony Delaney: Assistant Data Protection Commissioner
- I am concerned about the activities of private investigators working on behalf of the insurance industry and their use of tracking devices.
- Intelligence has come our way to suggest that some private investigators are using vehicle-tracking devices, going into people's driveways or yard or whatever and attaching a tracking device.
- It's very troubling. That's why it's not in anybody's interest, particularly the insurance industry, that their reputations could be in any way tarnished by this sort of activity being done, unknown to them, but it is being done because they hired the private investigators.
- Placing tracking devices under vehicles was in breach of section 2 of the Data Protection Act, although this particular section does not include specific 'offences' as such.
- I have written to insurance companies to warn them of the illegal practice.
- Some of these firms said that they were unaware that such surveillance was taking place.
- We also recommended a review of call-handling procedures and caller verification processes. This is an issue of priority for all organisations with large customer databases – to counter the dangers of private investigators or debt collectors obtaining information illicitly through ‘blagging’.
Private investigators admit ‘blagging’ credit union data
- This is not the first time a small number of PIs have engaged in such activity.
- Two years ago it was disclosed they were using illegal tactics to obtain confidential details about credit union customers from State agencies like the Department of Social Protection.
- That scandal rocked the credit union sector and led to a number of successful prosecutions by the Commission.
- Two owners of a private investigations company (MCK Rentals LTD) were convicted of deceptively obtaining personal information from the Department of Social Protection and the HSE and passing it on to credit unions.
- The court heard credit unions engaged the defendants to locate debtors in arrears. Seven credit unions across the country disclosed clients’ personal information, including PPS number and dates of birth, to the private investigators as a means of accessing further details.
- The defendants misrepresented themselves and used a practice known as “blagging” to trick employees of the Department of Social Protection and the HSE’s Primary Care Reimbursement Service into revealing the credit union debtors’ current addresses. The defendants then illegally conveyed this information to the credit unions.
