Alberta premier says law changes to be assessed after probes into voter list breach

Premier Danielle Smith says her government will look at new legislation depending on what comes out of investigations into claims a separatist group breached the personal information of nearly three million Albertans.

Smith made the comment Friday as the provincial privacy watchdog called for broader reforms and election officials said legislative changes last year stopped it from acting sooner.

Smith said protecting the private information of Albertans is critical and those responsible for the breach should be held accountable.

“We understand both Elections Alberta and the RCMP are looking into this matter thoroughly and we will wait for the results of those investigations before commenting further and assessing whether any future legislative changes need to be considered,” she said on social media.

Earlier this week, Elections Alberta announced it’s investigating a group called the Centurion Project for publishing an app that made publicly accessible the names and addresses of every Albertan on a recent voter list.

Elections Alberta went to court Thursday and a judge granted an injunction ordering the Centurion Project to take the app down, which it did within hours. The group later said it would comply with the investigation.

Lawyers for Elections Alberta said in court that investigators determined the database matched a voter list provided last summer to the pro-independence Republican Party of Alberta. They said it was unclear if a party official gave the list to the group or if it was obtained through other means.

The Republican Party was legally allowed to have the list. Voter lists are only distributed by Elections Alberta to elected officials, political parties and party officials. Provincial law dictates that they can only be used to solicit donations, recruit party members and communicate with electors.

Alberta’s privacy watchdog said the breach was incredibly serious and called on Smith’s government to change privacy laws to give her jurisdiction over political parties.

“This incident demonstrates that it is high time for political parties to be made subject to (the Personal Information Protection Act),” privacy commissioner Diane McLeod said.

It’s a move she and her predecessors have long sought, she said, and it’s already in place in British Columbia.

McLeod said personal information that became public through the Centurion Project’s app put people at risk.

“Some examples might be those who work for law enforcement, who are public officials, who are fleeing intimate partner violence and other vulnerable individuals,” McLeod said.

Chief electoral officer Gordon McClure echoed that concern, saying Elections Alberta has heard from hundreds of people who are scared and concerned about the personal information on the app.

Each voter list distributed by the agency is seeded with fake names to allow investigators to track who uses it.

Elections Alberta said its citizen initiative petition verification process will now include determining if any of the seeded fake names are contained in any incoming petition. 

“If any of the seeded names are included, further scrutiny will result,” it said.

Cameron Davies, leader of the Republican Party, said it would also comply with Elections Alberta’s investigation and that it had warned the Centurion Project any information the group may have received — if it came from the party — isn’t to be used.

The Centurion Project said Thursday it relied on an unnamed third party to build the data set and that the app would stay shut down until it complies with privacy laws.

The group’s leader, longtime political organizer David Parker, has said its goal was to identify and recruit supporters of Alberta’s separatist movement ahead of a possible referendum this fall.

Elections Alberta is by law not allowed to discuss or confirm investigations but said it went public in this case because the threat to citizens warranted it.

However, the agency is being criticized for not acting sooner. 

Jen Gerson, a Calgary-based journalist and political commentator, published an article with supporting documentation saying she raised the alarm on the database last month only to have Elections Alberta decline to investigate.

An April 10 letter shared by Gerson from Alberta’s election commissioner, Paula Hale, says the agency determined the evidence was “compelling” but fell short of clearly coming from a voter list and it declined to investigate further.

Gerson criticized the response, saying the agency shouldn’t have called off the investigation with a privacy breach at stake.

Michelle Gurney, a spokesperson for Elections Alberta, said in an email the agency must adhere to a high standard of evidence to begin an investigation — a standard similar to the amount of evidence police need to make arrests.

The higher threshold was added to legislation last summer by Smith’s government. Gurney said it was “much higher” than what the agency previously had to meet to launch investigations.

“(We) are doing everything we can within the bounds of the legislation,” Gurney said.

Justice Minister Mickey Amery’s office said any suggestion the legislation stopped Elections Alberta from investigating was “completely inaccurate.”

Heather Jenkins, Amery’s press secretary, said the act says investigations can take place if the elections commissioner has reasonable grounds to believe there was an offence, following receipt of a complaint or on its own initiative.

Elections Alberta raised concerns about the change shortly after the bill was tabled. In a letter at the time, McClure said it meant complainants would have to submit a “substantively completed investigation” before the agency could start its own.

“The proposed changes will eliminate the majority of the compliance activities undertaken by the election commissioner,” McClure said in the letter.

Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said Friday the delayed investigation raises serious questions and called for an emergency legislature committee meeting for McClure to explain further.

He also called on the United Conservative Party government to reverse the legislative change that Elections Alberta said tied its hands.

“There is a huge hole in the wall that protects Albertans’ privacy and Albertans’ information, and we need to plug that hole and we need to hear from the government what they’re intending on doing,” Nenshi said.

The law regulating the use of voter lists says violations can lead to fines of up to $100,000 and imprisonment of one year.