TORONTO — David Campbell found out Wednesday morning that he was one of 2,000 Sony Ericsson customers from Canada whose personal data had been stolen and posted online for anyone to see.
He's been through a case of online fraud before and is resigned to the fact that information stored on the web is at risk. So he wasn't overly concerned to learn that his name and email were being shared by hackers.
But he doesn't appreciate that Sony didn't alert him to the latest security breach to hit the entertainment giant.
"I guess (the data breach) is disappointing but in this modern day you'd probably be a little foolish to think that anything's safe. If you're using a computer you've got to be aware that your information is vulnerable," said Campbell, who works with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in southwestern Ontario.
"I think more disappointing would be that Sony didn't bother to contact any of their customers to let them know this had happened."
Sony has been hit with a number of hacker attacks in recent weeks, the most notable coming last month and affecting more than 100 million accounts of PlayStation Network and Qriocity users.
In that incident, data including names, birth dates, email addresses and log-in information was compromised. Sony also said encrypted credit card data from 10 million accounts may have been accessed.
The company said in a statement issued Wednesday that hackers on Sony Ericsson's Canadian site only accessed email addresses and encrypted passwords.
Sony did not immediately respond to questions about whether it attemped to contact affected consumers.
Campbell previously had a problem with fraudulent purchases being made with his credit card and that experience raised his level of caution when sharing information online.
But a few months ago, he needed a product from Sony and found he could only get it through the web. He took the risk.
"I wanted it, it was the only way to get it, so I did it," Campbell said.
"I don't think you have a reasonable expectation of privacy online any more, even on secure websites. I think that's being pretty clearly established."
Scott Spence, a Winnipeg-based financial planner, said he, too, was disappointed to not hear from Sony about his name and email being obtained by hackers. But he expected little fallout from the incident.
"The information that has been breached really is nothing more than getting information out of a telephone book and ... the impact to me personally is going to be minute," Spence said.
"A decade ago, most individuals would be absolutely appalled, but in this digital age, most individuals are finding it's (just) an inconvenience."
Earlier this month, Canada's privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart called for the power to impose "attention-getting fines" when major corporations fail to protect personal information.
She also said she was "very disappointed" that Sony did not proactively notify her of the major breach in April.
On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Stoddart said her office was not notified about the most recent breach.
"We have contacted them with the purpose of better understanding what took place and what measures are being taken to manage the situation," said spokeswoman Anne-Marie Hayden.
