Investigations underway after Tridel’s bank details were posted on the City of Toronto website

TORONTO – The banking information of Tridel, one of Canada’s largest homebuilders, was recently posted on the City of Toronto’s website and an investigation into the matter is currently underway.

A few months ago, Tridel’s bank account information was posted on the City of Toronto’s online Application Information Centre, which provides information on all active City Planning, Committee of Adjustment and Toronto Local Appeal Body applications in the city. The information on the planning applications was also posted on the website.

“We became aware of it when Tridel employees were searching the website for various information and found it that way,” said Michael Mestyan, vice president of development at Tridel. “There was this administrative incident where information was stolen on one of our applications and we became aware of it at some point, it must have been mid or late April. We brought it to the city’s attention as soon as possible to let them know that this information had inadvertently made its way onto the website.”

He said the city removed the information after being made aware of the situation.

“We can confirm that the City of Toronto learned through Tridel in April that its financial information had been posted on the City’s website,” said Russell Baker, media relations manager for the City of Toronto, in an email to the Daily Commercial News. “The City immediately removed the information and an internal investigation is underway.”

A bank account number, branch number and transit number were listed on the website. It is not known how long the information was on the website before it was removed, or how this happened.

“We closed the bank account to protect our own interests when we learned of the situation,” Mestyan said. “There is nothing more we can do. It is the city’s responsibility to ensure privacy is maintained. We will be more careful. We will review our files more closely once we have provided all the material to the city. I don’t want this to happen to me and I don’t want it to happen to anyone else.”