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Danielle Smith says law changes to be assessed after probes into alleged Alberta voter list breach

Click to play video: 'Elections Alberta investigating if voter list posted online was illegal'
Elections Alberta investigating if voter list posted online was illegal
Elections Alberta is investigating the possibility a provincial party or official illegally used or shared an official voter list containing the names and addresses of millions of residents across the province. As Jasmine King reports, a database on a website for separatist group, The Centurion Project, is no longer publicly available as the issue was addressed in court on Thursday.

Premier Danielle Smith says her government will look at making changes to the law depending on what comes out of investigations into an alleged data breach involving three million Alberta voters.

Smith, in a social media post on Friday, said protecting the private information of Albertans is critical and that violators should be held accountable.

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Alberta election officials and the RCMP are investigating how a database of contact information fell into the hands of a separatist group The Centurion Project, which made it easily available and searchable on a website.

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The Republican Party of Alberta’s copy of the list of electors was given to The Centurion Project, Elections Alberta said.

The Centurion database listed the names and home addresses of the province’s prominent politicians, top elections official, senators, judges, police officers, Crown prosecutors and other public figures like journalists.

By law, such a list is only supposed to go to elected officials, political parties and party officials and can only be used to solicit donations, recruit party members and communicate with electors.

The database was taken down Thursday after Elections Alberta went to court to get an injunction to stop it, and The Centurion Project said it will comply with investigators.

Alberta’s privacy watchdog is calling on Smith’s government to change privacy laws to give her jurisdiction over political parties, saying the breach poses serious safety risks.

— More to come…

With files from Karen Bartko, Global News

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