Book return required too much personal info, student says

Last Updated: Sunday, February 1, 2009 8:50 PM ET Comments6Recommend19

CBC News

The Alberta privacy commissioner's office says consumers need to force the issue if a retailer asks for too much personal information.

Sean Steel, a PhD student at the University of Calgary, said he had concerns about his privacy when he returned a book to the campus bookstore.

"It seemed to me that a lot of information was being gathered that was really unusual in my experience," he said.

According to Steel, the clerk asked him for a student card or driver's licence as identification — and then wrote down his driver's licence number.

"I thought, 'Oh you just want ID…. I'll flash you my driver's licence.' I set it down in front of her and then I took it back and she says, 'Wait, I still need that.'

"Jill Clayton, a spokesperson with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta, said people often call with privacy concerns when it comes to retailers collecting information.

"Ask questions of the cashier or the clerk who was assisting you," she advised.

"If you're not satisfied with that response, ask to speak to the privacy officer. They might not be called the privacy officer, but every organization is required to have somebody named or appointed."

Personal Info Missing

When CBC News brought the concern to the store, manager Brent Beatty said it was the first he had heard of it.

"My initial reaction was kind of shocked because that's not our policy. Our policy is to show ID — if it's a student ID or driver's licence or something like that. We have no mechanism to write down [any] bank information," he said.

The duplicate of Steel's return slip, which Beatty showed CBC News, has the book's price and inventory number, but no bank card or driver's licence information."It's just part of our return policy that everyone shows ID to do a return. We don't record driver's licences. It's just to validate who is actually doing the return," Beatty said.

However, Steel was not satisfied with the response.

"I still don't think it's justified to have that amount of questioning just to take a book back," he said. "It seems to me a little bit much."