Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster
globalnews.ca
globalnews.ca
IANAL but I have filed privacy complaints in the past at both the federal and provincial level. For the last 26 years in Canada it has been illegal for personal information to be bought and sold on a whim; the person to whom the information applies is considered to be the owner and is entitled to be in control of how their information is used, and may revoke consent.
You have an entire country where institutions operate under the expectation that personally identifiable information isn't easily available like this (sans the usual data breaches). Those institutions are probably less prepared to deal with this data floating around everywhere than in a society where it is essentially a free-for-all.
They don't give you that option when you vote.
Calling it functional is not something I would do. Judges are also extremely critical of the compensation process a have essentially been forced to take it over. It's also still too new and risky so lawyers are reluctant unless it's paid up front.
If anyone with any say is reading this, I can still break into any Freedom Mobile account in under a minute, including the admin ones.
There are many reasons an individual may choose to not be on the list (eg. domestic abuse situations).
If you're not on the list, the process is a bit longer, requires filling out an attestation and requires more ID. But even so, probably doesn't take more than an extra 5 minutes or so. But if everyone had to do it this way, would certainly slow things down.
So by doing it this way, it makes it fast for folks that aren't jeopardizing their safety by being on an electors list (whose distribution is supposed to be controlled, but I wouldn't count on it being fully confidential); while allowing folks that do need more confidentiality to not be on the list and still be able to vote without undue hassle.
I actually look like this as the opposite—SSNs, emails, phone numbers, and credit card numbers are more or less public, or at least relatively easy to guess, buy, or find online, and addresses are quite easy to find if you don't hide behind an LLC. I treat all as if they're public information and I assume our institutions do as well.
lolnope, at least not banks. Unlike here in the EU, where you need to provide some sort of physical ID to even open a bank account, much less get a line of credit...
Elections Alberta has now said they are going to check for this: "Verification after today’s date will include determining if any of the seeded names from the Republican Party of Alberta’s List of Electors are contained in any incoming petition." https://www.elections.ab.ca/resources/media/news-releases/me...
https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2026/02/alberta-separation-il...
We're already used to the US' dumbass leadership making 51st state threats, and since we all know TACO, it would just be more "idiot cries wolf" noise.
There are 4.2M people in Alberta and the separatist movement has struggled to get 300k signatures.
How do you think the actual referendum would go?
Plus a referendum is not a legally binding thing that would unconditionally force separation.
Even if more than 50% voted yes, it would simply require the government to formally explore the possibility of separating. At which point they would conclude, like others already have, that it's not legally possible to separate without changing existing laws (which could also happen but would be a much longer and more complicated road).
If you want a good primer on why it's basically impossible, this video might help:
This is not a likely scenario, but it's not at all impossible either.
I guess it's a form of a canary trap.
It reminds me of mapmakers including fake towns or other features in their maps, in case someone leaked them.
"Elections Alberta salts the electors’ lists with the names of fake voters, so if one copy of a list is leaked, the agency can trace its origins. An analysis determined the list came from the Republican Party of Alberta, headed by Cam Davies, who, like Parker, has a well-documented history in Alberta as a political operative who pushes boundaries."
Sounds the same to me, but are you sure they are doing it like this, or you guess?
> Each electoral list legitimately released by Elections Alberta includes a certain number of fictitious — or "seeded" — names. These unique entries on each electoral list allow investigators to trace each dataset back to their source in the event of a breach.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/elections-alberta-vo...
While this data may generally be public in the US, it usually isn't in Canada, and there's an expectation that parties don't publish the data and it is seeded to detect that.
A bigger problem is that people in Canada sign up for this list with the expectation that this data will remain reasonably private so now with this leak you have people who were willing to share their personal information to participate in the democratic process now afraid that their domestic abusers will be able to find them.[0] That really sucks.
There's also the awkward aspect of this in that the Alberta separatists are seemingly backed by American interests.
[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-city-counci...
Do you mean that there are "paper town"-like entries in the dataset to make it obvious when one has leaked?
Technically true, but you can register at the polling booth on the day of the election, and there's a checkbox that lets you opt out of saving your data in the database. [0]
There are many reasons an individual may choose to not be on the list (eg. domestic abuse situations).
But there is no justification for providing voter roll data to the wide public in a way that is machine readable. Or to provide these data to third parties (including political parties, candidates or PACs).
Candidates and parties can use USPS Bulk Mail, they do not need to know the names of potential voters to exercise their right to free speech. People interested to check if they or someone they know are on the voter rolls (or not, in the case of suspected/possible fraud) can do so in person or by mail.
Unfortunately, a lot of people still believe in widespread voter fraud despite the obvious and well-documented rarity.
I would say something similar about the availability of voter files, though. A lot of people are horrified they are available despite the obvious and well-documented lack of evidence it causes any significant harm.
Why not? It's considered public information, just like political donation records.
Because I don't want it to be. Why so?
> It's considered public information
The question is why is it considered public information.
> just like political donation records.
In what way?
If the voter rolls are state secrets, only available to approved insiders, how can you know they're not filled with regime sockpuppets?
Here in Germany, you can show up in person at the election office to check the voter rolls, although in practice you don't ever need to do so because registration of your residential address is mandatory and it automatically also updates voter rolls. Errors here are extremely, extremely rare as a result.
Also: has that in-person mechanism ever been used by stalkers/abusers to find their hiding targets?
Scandals regarding voter roll fraud are extremely rare. I can only think of one scandal from 2014 where a farmer was alleged to have seasonal laborers register and vote for the party of his wife by mail [1]. In the end, the case against the farmer ended up being tossed on insufficient evidence.
> Also: has that in-person mechanism ever been used by stalkers/abusers to find their hiding targets?
If someone is in hiding and legally protected, it is not allowed to contest these entries [2] since the threshold is very high. For "normal" people, you have to bring clear evidence that fraud may have occurred.
[1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/geiselhoering-wahlfaelsch...
[2] https://www.gesetze-bayern.de/Content/Document/BayVV_2021_I_...
The number of reported/memorable fraud scandals is not itself a reliable indicator of whether the proper controls are in place. It is only an accurate estimate of the actual fraud if you already assume the controls are working.
I don't know what you mean about "contesting" entries. The original report implied people could review the voter rolls - not just their own entry, or some small number of intentional challenges - by going in person. If they can review the names & addresses of all voters, stalkers/abusers could leverage that. If instead they can only "contest" certain entries by name after specific articulable suspicion, that's a much narrower kind of review, which again seems to offer none of the protection against insider fraud that exists in more transparent democracies.
Good luck getting in the way of political advertising, which is speech and expression at the apogee of its protection.
Again: what exactly requires candidates to know your name and address to send you propaganda via mail? There already exist bulk mail services that allow you to target specific areas, addresses and even limited demographics [1].
In local politics (which is where I engage mostly), these kinds of decisions get made on individual voter bases at times.
I want to be clear here that while I believe the principles I'm describing to be normatively good, I'm also being descriptive; the restrictions you'd advocate for would almost certainly be held unconstitutional.
That should be a capital offense if done for political purposes, commercial purposes or any other purposes that are not an emergency :)
That being said, it's pretty easy to get registered accidentally (I believe that the tax agency and the driver's licence agency both register you unless you opt out [1]), so this is still fairly bad.
[0]: Well, technically you must register to vote in Canada, but you can always register at the ballot box, and there's a checkbox that lets you opt-out of saving your information in the database (meaning that you'd need to reregister every time you vote).
[1]: You can use a post office box on both your taxes and your driver's licence, so that's usually the best solution to avoid getting accidentally registered with your real address.
They didn't mean for this to blow up in the public like this though. That part wasn't intentional. That part appears to be absolute incompetence or they just got sloppy after being treated with kid gloves by law enforcement for the past few years.
I got really suspicious when I started looking into Parker himself. He spews the typical "right wing" rhetoric -- Globalists bad, COVID fake etc etc... but if he actually believes that, what was he doing on the board of directors for Ditchley, which contains various ambassadors to China and France, Editor in Chief of the Globe and Mail, CEO of Desjardins, etc?
https://web.archive.org/web/20230313213623/https://www.ditch...
They're right that it's illegal but definitely wrong about it not happening.
The damage to privacy from this is likely much less then the average person realizes.
(an American living in Canada's perspective)
That's because it doesn't matter. There is no liability. You can invest all you want but at the end of day, nothing is going to come of it: no-one's going to be held responsible, no lessons are going to be learned, and we'll be reading about the next such leak in a few months' time.
Name, address and phone number is generally just public information here in Norway. You can literally just check the phone book for this. You can opt out of this but few people do.
How is any of this information leaking cause for concern?
Up here there is a custom of sharing essentially a dump of the elector's table with every political party in the early days of an election.
This dump is seeded with some fake data before being released to a single political party, so if said party gets up to shenanigans, we know about it. These of course do nothing to prevent privacy violations, only to detect and punish them after the fact.
Personally I think this is a dated system from a bygone era, as there is obvious risk of permanent harm via election fraud in an environment where politics actors are highly motivated. If you believe Canada is an evil woke empire from which you must protect your sons, you will likely not care about Canadian electoral law.
Electorate data should be maintained by the political parties themselves, and guarded like nukes. New political parties should put in the hoofwork to build their own damn lists.
I believe the reason why this has become such a large news story is the tension between Alberta (and the west) and the rest of Canada. Alberta has rising separatist sentiment, a premiere who is extremely popular in Alberta and extremely unpopular outside of Alberta, and is on average more right wing compared to the rest of Canada. In both the media coverage and popular sentiment, this incident has been used to show Alberta and its government in a bad light, despite it not having anything to do with the party currently in power.
As long as it makes Alberta look bad it's an excuse to attack Danielle Smith and the UCP, and Albertians in general. Other Canadians eat up negative Alberta news like nothing else, and the media will no doubt provide them with the type of news that they crave. If this happened in any other province it would get 1/10th the coverage and outrage. Instead you have people online calling for Smith to face prison time for something she was not involved in. The media gets their views and the people get their ragebait.
The reality is more the complete opposite. People from not-Alberta care about their own provincial governments and issues and don't really think about Alberta at all.
It's the media and government in Alberta that is encouraging this notion that "Alberta is under attack" from others because lazy grievance politics works and it's a good distraction from scrutiny on the failings of the Albertan provincial government. You see the government of Quebec do the same thing, blaming Rest of Canada for all their woes, wrapping themselves up in the provincial flag, etc etc.
Don't fall for this stuff.
Attended his wedding, did softball interviews with his wife who worked for a right wing media site.
But she's earned the animus of many Canadians and Albertans by playing footsie with garbage like David Parker, Tucker Carlson, etc.
It, by law, is public. Anybody who asks for it must be provided the file. Naturally the law is pre-internet and ignorant of abuses you can do.
But I'm not sure how this leak compares. Is it party affiliations and loads of PII to the point of impersonation?
There's also the edited register, which anybody can buy a copy of. You only appear in this list if you opt-in when you register. I don't know why anybody does.
What can go wrong...