An Alberta judge has ordered a separatist advocacy group to remove a publicly accessible voter database containing personal information tied to roughly 2.9 million Albertans.
Justice John Little issued the order April 30 after Elections Alberta sought urgent court intervention, alleging the voter information was distributed in breach of Alberta election law.
The list contains voter names, addresses, and voter identification dating back to last year, and was initially legally given to the pro-independence Republican Party of Alberta, according to statements made in court by Elections Alberta.
Elections Alberta told the court it believes Centurion Project, a third-party advertiser supporting Alberta independence, then got the voter records and made them accessible online. The agency said it sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Centurion Project earlier this week.
Alberta’s Election Act only permits electoral lists to be provided to political parties, candidates, constituency associations, election officers, and MLAs. Third parties are not permitted to obtain copies of such records.
The April 30 court order requires the Centurion Project to immediately take the voter information down from its website and hand over to Elections Alberta the identities of all those who signed up to access it. The Republican Party of Alberta was also instructed not to provide any of the voter data it has to unauthorized political entities.
The Centurion Project is led by long-time political organizer David Parker, who has said the group’s goal is to mobilize Albertans who support separation from Canada in advance of a possible referendum this fall.
The organization said in a statement on April 30 that it has taken down the platform until it can ensure it’s compliant with privacy laws.
“The Centurion Project was established to train volunteers to be better citizens by partaking in the political process,” the organization said in a statement on April 30.
“Volunteers utilized the Centurion App database to find people they know. They did not have access to phone numbers or emails.”
The organization said that it relied on a third party to provide the datasets in the platform.
“The Centurion Project is aware of recent allegations regarding the app’s data. We have taken action to shutdown the app until we can ensure that the dataset is compliant with Alberta and Federal privacy laws,” the organization said.
“The Centurion Project plans to fully comply with Elections Alberta’s investigation.”
Elections Alberta lawyer Joseph Redman told the court that electoral information compiled by Elections Alberta and given to authorized parties also contains various fictional names that are different in each list so the source of a leak can later be determined if the data is unlawfully shared.
“This is extremely sensitive data, and there are many safeguards to ensure it is only provided to the entities and individuals entitled under law to receive it,” the agency noted in its April 30 statement.
Under provincial law, unauthorized sharing or misuse of voter information can result in fines up to $100,000, up to one year in jail, or both.
The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
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