Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster
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Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster
#2While breaches like this should not continue to happen, almost everyone’s personal information has been leaked on the internet at this point. This article seems a bit alarmist on the potential harm.
Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster
#3In terms of "safety" this leak is a drop in the bucket. The greater concern would be that election systems are involved. If election information is unintentionally readable, it is also therefore potentially alterable.
Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster
#4While breaches like this should not continue to happen, almost everyone’s personal information has been leaked on the internet at this point. This article seems a bit alarmist on the potential harm.
I think that's a fair take for most people in the leak, but there are people who try to keep their address a secret for their safety (investigative journalists, witnesses of crimes, judges, lawyers, police officers, etc). They often have a PO box for situations when they have to enter an address (online purchases) or they buy everything in their partner's name (including their house). When their names are leaked elsewhere, their home address is not usually in those leaks. This is a unique type of leak that could be very harmful.
Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster
#5So here in the Midwest USA, I can go to election commission and legally obtain the voter registration file.
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?
Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster
#6So here in the Midwest USA, I can go to election commission and legally obtain the voter registration file. 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?
Yeah, it almost sounds like the leaked information was... effectively the white pages for the area. ie name, address, and phone number
Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster
#7Canadians generally think that buying and selling their information is illegal so it's not happening, which is why this is news.
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)
Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster
#8It was left up in an unprotected state by Alberta separatists. Intentional?
Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster
#9The phone numbers in these data sets are weird and problematic, but the equivalent data in the US is usually public, and available for free to any registered candidate.
Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster
#10It was left up in an unprotected state by Alberta separatists. Intentional?
From what I've seen it appears that it was intentional in that their motivation was to give their canvassers for the separatism petition access to the data so that they could pad their numbers for the petition.[0]
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.