Following a ruling by the Court of Queen’s Bench in Regina, Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) has agreed to disclose information about a car owner – whose vehicle suspiciously shares a VIN with another car – to a US citizen who claims he has the authentic automobile.
Robert A. Bonanno of Florida, together with the Pennsylvania law firm Shook Legal, claims he owns the original 1967 Chevrolet Corvette, and that the one owned by a Saskatchewan resident is fake. The US car owner and his lawyers argue that having two vehicles with the same VIN devalues his car, which would have been worth over $250,000.
Legal counsel Bryan Shook told Saskatoon StarPhoenix that Bonanno was attending an auto show in Florida when he first learned that his car shared a VIN with another. Shook found the car with the duplicate VIN using the Carproof website and found a recent registration hit.
In March, Shook Legal filed a complaint to Saskatchewan’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, which later ruled in May that the information Bonanno sought did not qualify as personal information.
When SGI initially presented to the Regina court order on August 31, the insurer cited the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act, reasoning that Bonanno’s request did not fall under the exemption guidelines of the law that would allow for disclosure of personal information.
However, Bonanno argued, and the court agreed with him, that justifying that the public interest outweighs the invasion of the Saskatchewan driver’s privacy.
“Even if the requested information is personal information as defined in the Act, the goal of unravelling whether fraud has been perpetrated against an individual outweighs any harm potentially resulting from disclosure of the name and address of a registered owner of a vehicle in these circumstances,” Justice Lana Krogan’s ruling read.
SGI finally abided by the court’s decision on Tuesday. In an emailed statement, the insurer said that while it would comply with the ruling, it maintains that its position is that vehicle registration information contains personal information and that is why it declined to share that personal information with a third party.
“However, the court disagreed with SGI’s position and we will respect that decision,” SGI said in its email.
