Poll suggests 84% of Albertans want privacy law to cover political parties and candidates
Poll suggests 84% of Albertans want privacy law to cover political parties and candidates
Publish Date: 2026-06-05 08:00:00
Source Domain: www.cbc.ca
At least four in five Albertans agree that the privacy law applying to businesses should also apply to political parties, suggests a new Ipsos poll, conducted for a B.C. privacy advocacy organization.
Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner Diane McLeod says the poll results bolster her call for her office to have oversight of political parties, following a massive voter data breach that came to light in April.
“I think there’s a loss of trust,” she said in an interview with CBC News on Thursday.
Elections Alberta has said the pro-independence Republican Party of Alberta’s legally acquired list of nearly three million Alberta electors — and their personal information — somehow ended up in the hands of a separatist group called the Centurion Project and was posted in an online database.
McLeod has called what happened “the worst breach in Canadian history involving voter data.”
The Centurion Project has previously said it relied on a “third party” to provide it with datasets for its searchable database. The organization has said it created its database as part of an attempt to recruit volunteers and identify supporters in anticipation of a referendum on independence.
McLeod said she received hundreds of messages from people across the province, worried that people in their family could be at risk because their personal information was publicly posted.
Elections Alberta, the RCMP and McLeod’s office are all investigating the breach. Electors lists contain citizens’ full names, street addresses, postal codes, phone numbers and unique election identification numbers.
McLeod is investigating the Centurion Project, but can’t look at the Republican Party of Alberta by law, which she said is “troubling” to her and confusing to the public.
“I felt helpless, quite frankly,” she said. “As a person who’s advocated for privacy rights for nearly 30 years, it’s difficult to sit in a situation where someone is looking to you to do something and…
