By the summer of 2015, staff who worked in the CPP disability program, including medical adjudicators, were given their new guidelines.
The briefing note provides a series of detailed examples of online searches that are considered to be over the line.
They include:
Looking up an online obituary notice for an application for CPP survivor benefits;
“Friending” a CPP disability claimant on Facebook to see if pictures provide evidence that the applicant can in fact work;
Looking up municipal property information to see if someone has lived in the country long enough to qualify for old age security benefits.
The briefing note says that using publicly available information like social media posts and even address listings could be considered “an invasion of privacy” and a violation of the Privacy Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Insurers use Social Media to investigate claims so don’t over share on these sites. Also check your privacy settings and if you are tagged in any posts pictures. Turn off geolocation-geolocation can easily be turned off by visiting the settings section of the social media site or clicking on the location icon before making a post.
Shortly after when WCB got a hold of my email they contacted me and said something like, “it was nice meeting you last night at the bar, we had such a good time and was wondering if you wanted to do it again”?
Never in my life have I ever been sent an email like this and I’ve never been contacted by a stranger, not until WCB got a hold of my email, nor have I been sent an email of the like since.
I did reply to the email but I never got a reply back, I was expecting a reply that said sorry to have bothered you but then maybe they thought I’d ask them to explain how they got my email in the first place and name as they did call me out by name???
When I replied I told them that I wish that were me but I am disabled and not able to do those things, you’ve got the wrong person.
Insurance companies, WBC and the like often do the unthinkable so if you try to explain it to the average person they will think you are delusional and not believe you. The “industry” spends a ton of money on campaigns to crack down on fraud to keep the stigmatization going on claimants. Fraud is actually only between 3-10% of all claims.
An individual who is new to the claim game is often taken advantage of because they trust the Insurer and want to prove their the good claimant and not like the others.
Insurance is business and all about the money. Be genuine, be truthful, but don’t trust them.
Your job is to get better, get to the right treatment providers and be always respectful.
Let the Insurance Company hang themselves if they play dirty. You then will have a case against them.
I had a similar experience on meetup.com where I have an account. Some “girl” with a fake account started asking me a lot of questions about my activity level and whether I attend a lot of meetups. I replied "No, not yet. “She” bugged me for a while. At the end “she” said “Thanks” and “her” account diappeared along with the messages. It made me suspicious as “she” was not interested in me or telling anything about “herself” but only about my activity level. Spooky
This does not surprise me all. One thing to keep in mind is there is a big distinction on what is allowed (legally) inside vs outside of litigation. If you are in a lawsuit, courts will give much more latitude for such sleuthing to happen. The CPP adjudicators are outside of a litigation process so they would be held to a much stricter standard.
David Brannen
Disability Lawyer with Resolute Legal
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