The territorial workers' compensation board broke its own privacy rules by giving one person private information on four other injured workers.

Tony Armstrong, president of the Yukon Workers' Compensation Health and Safety Board, confirmed Thursday the organization had broken its own confidentiality rules.

'We had an injured worker request release of information from his file to himself,' Armstrong said in an interview this morning.

Within that file was a report of dates and value of cheques for benefits for that person. However, that single page listed the same information of four other injured workers, including their names.

Armstrong apologized for the release of information.

The Workers' Compensation Act states no information obtained through the act can be released except in the normal duties of board employees. This was a case where that confidentiality was broken.

'I've personally apologized,' said Armstrong. He spoke Thursday to three of the four people whose information was released. The fourth he phoned but was not able to speak to yesterday.

Armstrong assured them the breach was completely accidental.

The board has checks to ensure this kind of release does not happen, he added.

'This slipped through.'

He said the organization can apologize, ask for the information to be returned and put in extra steps to ensure it never happens again.

The president didn't know for sure if it has happened in the past.

'In all probability, we've had this happen once before, twice before,' Armstrong said.

The information of the other four was on the paper because of the board's computer system.

According to Armstrong, the system does not allow for one person's information to be printed on one page; it prints out five per page.

Because of the way the computer prints the data, standard procedure is then to black out the information of the other four people, photocopy it and then put it in the file. That was not done in this case.

Armstrong said this will be remedied as part of the board's plan to replace its computer system.

Two years ago, it started a project to replace computer software and improve the programs used to retrieve information.

Initially, the plan was penciled in to cost $4 million and was to be done in two years.

After there were concerns it could cost $6 million, the current board slowed down the process.

Armstrong said the board is still trying to replace the computer systems but it will take longer.

Mike Travill, the government-employed injured workers' advocate, said staff and budget cuts are a major reason for this screw-up.

'There aren't enough people to do the work in my estimation,' Travill said. He noted the board recently chopped five jobs.

'They're definitely being overloaded,' said Travill.

At the same time, he said, 'that's no excuse' for private information being released.

Liberal Leader Pat Duncan, who raised the issue in the legislature Thursday, was concerned that job cuts are the reason for the breach.

She's concerned if that's the case, considering $17,000 was spent last summer to send the entire board of directors to Vancouver last year for a national conference.

Armstrong asked if a lack of staff could be a reason for the error.

'I think that there's always concerns around workloads,' said the president. 'I'm not going to say that we're overworked.'

However, Armstrong confirmed the board has received many requests for information. It has seen close to triple the number of requests over the past few years.

When Duncan raised the concern in the legislature, the minister responsible for the board, Peter Jenkins, said he knew nothing about it but would look into it.

Armstrong said he found out yesterday when Jenkins' office contacted him to say it had heard a complaint in the morning.

The president said he determined what happened and had contacted the affected workers by the afternoon.