ICBC says the employees involved have been disciplined and the lawyers suspended from further work with the corporation. (CBC)

The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia has identified three privacy breaches involving claim histories of jurors being inappropriately accessed by outside lawyers representing it during court proceedings.

The first breach was revealed last month in a Victoria court case. Two more were announced Thursday by ICBC, one relating to a 2000 trial and the other a 2006 trial.

In all three cases, lawyers made requests to ICBC employees to see confidential claim histories of the jurors sitting on the cases they were handling for the corporation.

"It's something that shouldn't have been done," ICBC's media relations manager Mark Jan Vrem said Thursday. "We're embarrassed about it, and we're disappointed by these breaches. But we're committed to doing the right thing for our customers and for the plaintiffs involved in these … trials."

B.C. Labour Minister Iain Black says the privacy commissioner's expanded audit of ICBC will review whether there's is a pattern of abuse of personal information. (CBC)

Darrell Evans, executive director of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, said the breaches are serious.

"It suggests that the lawyers were not considering the importance of privacy laws and weren't respecting the privacy rights of the citizens who were on juries," Evans said Thursday.

The provincial government has asked the privacy commissioner to expand his audit of ICBC to determine whether the breaches were isolated cases or if there's a pattern of abusing personal information.

"The purpose of the audit is to understand how, when and why personal information of individuals involved in ICBC jury trials may have been inappropriately accessed, and to provide recommendations on how ICBC can enhance privacy protection," said Labour Minister Iain Black, who is also responsible for ICBC.

Employees disciplined

Privacy commissioner David Loukidelis is an independent officer of the legislature. His mandate includes monitoring and enforcing provincial privacy legislation.

ICBC president and CEO Jon Schubert said in a statement Thursday that the corporation welcomes an audit by Loukidelis into the privacy aspects of its court proceedings involving jurors.

"ICBC handles millions of transactions a year that involve customers' information," Schubert said. "To date we have encountered a few regrettable situations out of literally millions of transactions. That being said, one is too many."

The employees involved have been disciplined, and the lawyers in question have been suspended from further work with ICBC, the corporation said.