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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

#41

Post by thunderfork »

ginko wrote: post #15

>Security experts say a leak of Alberta’s provincial list of voters – nearly three million names, addresses and phone numbers – has created a potential public safety and political interference crisis that could have ramifications for decades. 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…

The people who've opted out of the phone book for reasons like "stalkers", etc., would probably be pretty upset with this, even if they're "few people"

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#42

Post by dblohm7 »

Respectfully to the American "this isn't that big a deal crowd": you're looking at it from the perspective that this is a commonplace occurrence in your country.

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.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#43

Post by hexagonsuns »

Spooky23 wrote: post #28
lukeinator42 wrote: post #12

The other concerning aspect of this leak is the fact that the list was shared with a group of separatists, and the data on the list is basically everything you need to fraudulently sign someone up for the separatist referendum petition. Some separatists are claiming that certain ridings have had 92.9% of eligible voters sign the petition which is highly dubious: https://x.com/RiseOfAlberta/status/2049668987307303389…

Sounds like an "active measures" operation.

I'd say that sums it up nicely - I mentioned this in another comment but everything around this just smells. After doing some digging into David Parker, I found he just happened to sit on the Ditchley board of directors... strange indeed. https://web.archive.org/web/20230313213623/https://www.ditch...

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#44

Post by Tiktaalik »

slopinthebag wrote: post #16

Other commentators are rightfully pointing out that this information is open public in other jurisdictions, and that Albertans' information is almost certainly already being shared and sold. 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 ex…

> 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.

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.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#45

Post by werdnapk »

mig39 wrote: post #22

My understanding is that when Elections Alberta shares the voter list with legit users (ie: sitting members of the legislature), it includes unique fictitious entries in the data. That way if there is a leak of the data, they can trace the source of the leak. Which they apparently have done. 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…

It's mentioned explicitly in the article:

"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."

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#46

Post by slopinthebag »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #44
slopinthebag wrote: post #16

Other commentators are rightfully pointing out that this information is open public in other jurisdictions, and that Albertans' information is almost certainly already being shared and sold. 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 ex…

> 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. 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" fro…

That is not my experience at all. Canadians are obsessed with American politics for example, and many people I know follow what's happening in the US closer than their own federal or provincial politics. In general people care more about federal politics than provincial. And hating on Alberta is almost as beloved an activity as hating on the USA.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#47

Post by kleiba2 »

> “I’m surprised that nobody has actually called for a public inquiry into the data leak yet,” said University of Alberta political scientist Jared Wesley.

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.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#48

Post by adamiscool8 »

dblohm7 wrote: post #42

Respectfully to the American "this isn't that big a deal crowd": you're looking at it from the perspective that this is a commonplace occurrence in your country. 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 consid…

In Canada, for most of the 20th century until maybe 15 years ago, your PII was in a big book that lived at everybody's house and the library unless you specifically opted out.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#49

Post by dallen33 »

slopinthebag wrote: post #25
rjrjrjrj wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smith was friendly with Parker. Attended his wedding, did softball interviews with his wife who worked for a right wing media site.

See this is what I mean. "She was friendly" therefore she must be involved!!!

She is involved.

Re: Alberta voter list leak is a potential public safety disaster

#50

Post by throwaway27448 »

dblohm7 wrote: post #42

Respectfully to the American "this isn't that big a deal crowd": you're looking at it from the perspective that this is a commonplace occurrence in your country. 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 consid…

> You have an entire country where institutions operate under the expectation that personally identifiable information isn't easily available like this

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.

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