Desjardins Group Chief Executive Guy Cormier said the credit union federation will offer free, permanent data protection to all its members in the wake of last month's data breach that affected 2.7 million individuals. 

According to a news report, the protection will be rolled out for all clients, not just the roughly 2.7 million people and 173,000 businesses affected by the data breach. All Desjardins credit union clients, said Cormier, including business customers, will have access to data protection for life and in-house services to help address identity theft, but the protection will not be extended to investment and insurance customers. 

Clients who are victims of identity theft in the future will have free access to lawyers specializing in identity theft and will be compensated for losses and clients will be accompanied during every step of the process, from filing a police report to contacting federal government agencies, says the news report. 

The protection plan, notes the news report, includes up to $50,000 for clients who experience identity theft, including loss of salary or fees associated with filing legal documents. Desjardins had already announced it was offering everyone affected, about 40 percent of Desjardins customers, five years of free credit monitoring with Equifax. Cormier said only 360,000 affected members, or 13 percent, were signed up as of Monday morning, potentially leaving the customers vulnerable for more data breaches.

An emergency meeting of the House of Commons public safety and national security committee that analyze whether issuing new social insurance numbers to affected customers would be possible, and examine solutions to prevent future data breaches.