Shaw & privacy & email

[Hollasa]

I emailed Shaw through their website to request that when they ported us over to Shaw Phone, that they not bring over the distinctive ring number. I had this response, in part:
We understand you would like to discontinue the distinctive ring feature. We are pleased to assist. We have noticed that you currently have no identification on your account for verification and security purposes. Please be advised that Shaw has committed to adhering to PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection & Electronic Documents Act) as part of our vision of delivering exceptional customer experience. When making any account changes we do require identification before we proceed. Kindly email us one of the following identifications Driver's License, BCID, Care Card or Passport number. Going forward we will require identification on the account before we are able to respond.

So - ah - as part of their privacy policy, they want me to email them my driver's license, BCID, Care Care, or passport number? Which they don't already have?

Is there a flaw with that, or is it just me?

[Zelig]

Well, although I don't like it, most ISPs require something like this now.

The real problem here is that they're asking you to provide secure information by email, I would just call them and sort them out. (Although I don't really treat my diver's license # as secure anyway, depending on province you can guess the master number within a few tries, given a name.)