Albertans count on the provincial government to enact and uphold the laws to protect them. So it was alarming when the privacy commissioner reported last week that provincial government officials breached privacy laws in 2014.
More alarming still is the news that the breach was traced to the Executive Council office, the highest level of the Alberta government.
The information about the breaches came in an investigation report released last week from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta. The investigation determined the access and release of cell phone records contravened the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act.
All Albertans should care about this breach. What if the most personal information about you was accessed and shared with people without your knowledget? The threat is real considering that personal medical, financial and other information is stored on some government databases. If there are breaches at the highest level of Alberta government, what message does that convey to other departments about privacy?
This breach involved access to cellphone records of St. Albert resident Thomas Lukaszuk. The investigation revealed that private information linked to three other people was also inadvertently accessed in that same breach.
Lukaszuk’s case has been widely reported. His cellphone records showed he racked up $20,000 in roaming fees doing government business while on an overseas vacation in 2012. While the amount was shocking to the public when it was leaked to a newspaper in 2014, it was hardly news to government officials who paid Lukaszuk’s roaming fees a year earlier. What was unusual was that someone accessed that information from secure storage two years later. Information was later leaked to the public in 2014 during the Alberta PC leadership race in which Lukaszuk was competing.
Lukaszuk has long claimed wrongdoing in the access and release of his information. Last week he claimed vindication after the privacy commissioner’s investigation report.
The investigation concentrated on whether personal information was used and disclosed in contravention of the FOIP Act and whether the public bodies (Executive Council and Service Alberta) that had custody and control of that personal information used appropriate safeguards to protect it.
What the report revealed is safeguards were not in place to protect private information. If it wasn’t in place in this case, is it in place to protect your information now? Now it is up to the current Alberta government to review the privacy commissioner’s findings to ensure the private information of Albertans is secure. Albertans have every right to expect their information will be protected.
