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A former welfare case worker was accused of embezzling money and using her job to recruit workers for an escort service, a confidential document from computer tapes sold by the B.C. government has revealed.

The file contains a six-page transcript of a disciplinary proceeding where the woman was suspended from her job with the then-Ministry of Human Resources, now the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance.

In that transcript, a manager alleged the woman took money from the ministry.

She said the woman wrote cheques to herself using money that should have gone to pay for the rent of ministry clients.

The transcript shows the manager also accused the woman of using her position of trust with clients to recruit workers for an escort service, an allegation the woman denied.

In the transcript, the woman said she had worked as an escort for several months, but quit before taking a job at the ministry. She said she had an escort licence that expired not long before the disciplinary meeting took place.

The transcript is contained in a file on one of 41 computer tapes sold by the provincial government on May 17, 2005, at a public auction in Surrey. The tapes were sold for $101 in an auction lot along with other assorted computer equipment.

When he realized what was on the tapes, the buyer brought the tapes to The Sun. He did so on the condition of anonymity.

As The Sun reported on Saturday and Monday, the tapes contain numerous files with highly sensitive and confidential information.

In the case of the ministry worker who was suspended, court documents show a woman by the same name pleaded guilty to fraud and had to pay $31,726.34 in restitution to the Ministry of Human Resources. She was also sentenced to 12 months in jail.

No court proceedings could be found on allegations relating to the escort service. The woman could not be reached for comment.

Due to the sensitive nature of the information, The Vancouver Sun will not identify any people named in the files on the tapes.

Among the other files on the tapes are records on thousands of people's medical status -- including a listing of some people with HIV or mental illness -- and a record of whether they are considered fit for work.

That file also contains social insurance numbers, provincial health numbers and other confidential information.

Another file on the tapes contains a listing of the names, social insurance numbers and internal government file numbers for more than 30,000 refugees.

On Sunday, federal Immigration Minister Monte Solberg told The Sun he plans to launch an investigation to determine what led to those records being inadvertently released.

B.C. Privacy Commissioner David Loukidelis has also ordered an investigation into the matter, as has Labour Minister Mike de Jong, whose ministry oversees the auction where the tapes were sold.

As part of the privacy commissioner's investigation, and with the consent of the person who bought the tapes at auction, The Sun on Monday handed all the tapes to a forensic data-recovery expert hired by Loukidelis.

While much of the sensitive information on those tapes deals with members of the public, there is also confidential information on government employees themselves.

Several files on the tapes contain e-mails between government employees or correspondence on personal employment issues.

In one letter, an employee was given a one-day suspension for "the misappropriation of the social fund."

In another, a manager writes a woman's doctor asking for an explanation for her unusually high number of absences.

One file gives a listing of employees with their computer user names and passwords. Another shows the employment status, birth date, salary and social insurance number of about 10,000 employees within the former Ministry of Social Services.

On Monday, B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union president George Heyman said he finds it "concerning" that information about members of his union, and about other people in the province, were sold at auction.

"I think British Columbians and Canadians are increasingly concerned about personal privacy and protection of personal their information," he said in an interview Monday.

"I think what we clearly see from this is a need for higher levels of oversight and more safeguards to protect our information."

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