Nearly 3 million Alberta voter records (names, addresses, phone numbers) leaked via a separatist group’s canvassing app, with experts warning of decades-long criminal and foreign interference risk.
Key Takeaways
The Centurion Project, tied to separatist operative David Parker, built a searchable app using the List of Electors obtained from the Republican Party of Alberta; Parker paid $45,000 for the data from a third-party vendor.
Elections Alberta salts voter lists to trace leaks; analysis confirmed the data originated from Republican Party of Alberta head Cam Davies, who claims vendors misused access he later revoked.
A journalist warned Elections Alberta on March 31 about a freely downloadable database; the Elections Commissioner declined to investigate until April 27 due to a higher evidentiary threshold introduced by UCP’s 2025 Elections Act amendments.
Former RCMP officials warn the data enables micro-targeting of voters ahead of a separatism referendum, and exposes high-risk individuals (judges, police, journalists, domestic abuse victims) whose addresses are otherwise guarded.
No public inquiry has been called; Premier Smith’s response was characterized by enforcement experts as inadequate given the scale.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters with US context note that equivalent voter registration data (name, address, phone) is legally public and freely obtainable in many US states, framing the Canadian reaction as a cultural gap rather than a novel data exposure.
The primary technical concern raised is not the PII itself but that accessible election data implies potentially alterable election infrastructure; a secondary concern is that the database was left unprotected, raising questions of intentionality.
There is some skepticism about alarmism given widespread prior data exposure, but commenters acknowledge that individuals who deliberately suppress their address (witnesses, judges, journalists) face disproportionate harm.
Notable Comments
@uticus: Flags that readable election data implies writable election data – the integrity risk may exceed the privacy risk.
