Suspect in data theft at Desjardins, Mathieu Joncas was found guilty of buying lists containing sensitive data of thousands of people without making sure to have their consent and of having failed to reveal certain facts during the his questioning.
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On Monday, the disciplinary committee of the Organisme d’autoréglementation du courtage immobilier du Québec (OACIQ) rendered its judgment in the case of the Quebec broker, whose hearing took place in the spring of 2021.
“The Committee has no doubt that information relating to an individual’s financial situation is confidential information,” read the 52-page document.
This decision relates only to the guilt of Mathieu Joncas. Disciplinary sanctions will be decided later at another hearing. The respondent now has 30 days to appeal.
Mathieu Joncas has been the target of two complaints since 2020. The first is for having bought “in 2016 or 2017”, as a mortgage broker, lists of potential clients, “without worrying or ensuring that they had consented to the transmission of their personal data”.
During his hearing, Mathieu Joncas tried to demonstrate that most of the data available on these lists were accessible or that it was possible to calculate them from the age of a person.
The Committee does not believe, however, that it is possible to obtain revolving credit from a person without going through their borrower or financial institution.
“He [Mathieu Joncas] tells us that the information […] relating to Revolving Credit is unnecessary and insignificant because one does not know what the numbers represent. In our opinion, this statement by the Respondent has no basis or credibility, ”the Committee argues.
“In a context where the respondent wanted to buy a list of clients with mortgages from Desjardins, but also with bad debts, why would a clever businessman like the respondent pay $ 100,000 to obtain a list with information of no value whatsoever regarding the personal debts of potential clients? ”he asks.
The Committee also does not believe that it is a coincidence that Mathieu Joncas emptied the contents of his computer in June 2019, that is to say during the same period when Desjardins publicly revealed the data theft.
Conflict of interest
The second complaint concerns a possible conflict of interest between his role in a mortgage brokerage agency and his position as a shareholder in a private loan company.
The discipline committee notably ruled that Mathieu Joncas had effectively placed himself in a position of conflict of interest in two cases. The broker was, however, acquitted of having allegedly “neglected or refused ”to transmit certain files within the framework of this second complaint.
During her testimony at the spring hearing, the assistant syndic of the OACIQ, Julie Pinet, argued that Mathieu Joncas had admitted to having bought from Jean-Loup Leullier-Masse, another suspect in the theft file at Desjardins, between “150,000 and 200,000 names” with confidential data, such as mortgage balance, mortgage rate, and monthly disability and life insurance premiums.
Mathieu Joncas would have spent “$ 1” to buy the first 50,000 names and paid “40 cents” for each other name. The total bill would have been between $ 90,000 and $ 110,000.
Suspect confessed to wanting to get hold of lists of clients with co-op mortgages “because they often live in the regions and Desjardins does not offer them competitive interest rates ”.
No criminal charges have yet been filed in the file of the data theft at Desjardins.
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