It was a scene of shock and horror that greeted councillor Vickey Bosch when she visited the garden dumping site on Kruger Avenue, Centurion on Monday to find documents with people’s personal information lying around, exposed for anyone to see.
Rekord received information from a resident, who wished to remain anonymous, about documents being dumped at the site, allegedly by a business person. The source told Rekord he visited the dumpsite on Sunday to dump his own garden waste.
He said he noticed people packing documents away in containers. On closer inspection he noticed these documents contained personal details. “There were people’s files with all their personal information,” he said.
According to the source the workers told him they would sell these papers to people willing to pay for the information.
Bosch confronted the workers at the dumping site about this but they denied the allegations. They did, however, admit that documents were dumped on the premises.
The source said the documents were specifically set aside to be taken away separately. When Bosch visited the site, there were only a few documents still lying on the ground. The workers said the documents were pushed into a large heap of garden waste.
The source also alleged there were bank statements and copies of ID’s between the documents. On a visit to the site, Rekord picked up documents of bank statements and documents with people’s ID numbers, cell phone numbers, email addresses and residential or business addresses.
Regardless of the small number documents that were found, there were enough information for anyone to commit identity fraud with the people’s details. According to Captain Paul Ramaloko, Hawks spokesperson, a person only needs the identity number, copy of an ID or account number to commit identity theft.
According to Bosch the documents should at least have been shredded.
The Tshwane metro police spokesperson, Isaac Mahamba, said the dumping of classified documents without destroying them first, could be a criminal offence.
