Elections Alberta says separatist group’s app containing voter info may have been seen by thousands

There could be thousands of people who allegedly used an Alberta separatist group’s searchable database containing the personal information of millions of voters, according to Elections Alberta.  

Late last month, a judge ordered the Centurion Project to shut down its database, which Elections Alberta said during a Court of King’s Bench hearing contained voter information the group should not have had access to.

The privacy breach is being investigated by the RCMP, Alberta’s privacy commissioner and Elections Alberta.

Dallas Stoesz, deputy chief electoral officer for Elections Alberta, said during an appearance on CBC News Network’s Power and Politics on Wednesday that investigators are not yet confident the voter list is no longer being shared or accessed.

“I want to really stress that it’s thousands who may have just seen the list,” she said during the interview.

“What we don’t know is exactly who and how many people received the list and had direct access to the full list of electors.”

The Centurion Project, a registered third-party advertiser supporting Alberta independence, said the online tool was designed to help identify and recruit people who might vote in favour of separation if a referendum was held on the issue.

The database included names, addresses and voter registration details of nearly three million people. Elections Alberta said the information came from a voter list that had been legally provided to the pro-independence Republican Party of Alberta, but said it has not determined how the information became available to the Centurion Project. 

The Centurion Project has said it relied on a “third party” to provide it with datasets for its searchable database.

The Centurion Group is led by political organizer David Parker. In a social media post on X on April 30, he compared the information in the database to information that can be found in phone books. 

Parker had not responded to CBC News’ request for a response to Stoesz’ comments as of publication.

More than 500 Albertans who accessed the database have already received cease-and-desist letters from Elections Alberta. CBC News is among those who received a cease-and-desist letter from Elections Alberta last week.

Stoesz said Elections Alberta is “pursuing every legal avenue available” to make sure the list is no longer being used. She added the agency is not yet “completely confident” this is the case.

“We have experts here in our technology team who are looking for that information and doing whatever they can to find out where it might be, if it’s been used, if it’s anywhere on the dark web, that sort of thing,” she said. 

“We’re doing everything to find out all of the information that we can possibly find.”

Alberta’s chief electoral officer Gordon McClure said in a statement on Tuesday that Parker is not co-operating with investigators.

“He has refused to sign a statutory declaration confirming that he will comply with my direction to cease and desist with respect to the list of electors,” McClure said.

Parker’s lawyer, Chad Williamson, issued a statement on Tuesday that said his client would not sign a declaration and argued Elections Alberta cannot compel him to do so.

“Asserting fundamental constitutional rights against state overreach is not defiance — it is the bedrock of our justice system,” he said. “We do not advise clients to walk into unconstitutional traps.”