Sherry, a recent Sheridan College graduate, was seeking a $10,000 line of credit to become a Steeped Tea consultant to earn some extra money in the evenings and on weekends.If you are wondering about Steeped Tea, check out their short video at http://www.steepedtea.com/.

She met with an employee of the Friendly Bank of Canada and she said thatthey could give her the line of credit, but first they required certain information from her.During the interview, Sherry mentioned that her income included both salary and a bonus aspect since she was in sales.As a result, the branch employee asked for her most recent Income Tax return.Sherry went home and dug it out and returned to the branch.When she got back to the branch, Sherry indicated that she thought the tax return gave the bank too much personal information.The employee insisted that the bank needed the information to process the line of credit and took it from Sherry.

After Sherry got the line of credit, she complained to the branch manager about what she felt was an invasion of her privacy.The manager took it up with the bank's privacy officer, who eventually told Sherry that all the information on her return was necessary to assess her creditworthiness.Not satisfied with the response, Sherry is thinking of complaining to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Please answer the following questions about Sherry's situation.

Questions:

1.What sort of personal information is typically found on an Income Tax return?

2.Has the Friendly Bank of Canada violated any of PIPEDA's principles of privacy in insisting on collecting the information contained in Sherry's tax return?If so, which ones and why?

3.What steps could the Friendly Bank of Canada taken to avoid this situation in the first place?