The B.C. government announced it’s ending public access to its government directory, citing cybersecurity and employee privacy risks.
The directory has previously been available so that anyone can look up the names of people employed by the provincial government, their department, their work email and their work phone number.
In a statement, the Ministry of Citizen Services said, “The directory was created to support legitimate contact with government, but the same information is available to anyone on the internet, including cyber threat actors.
“We fend off hundreds of cybersecurity attacks each day, and that risk has been increasing over the past few months as AI tools make it faster and easier to harvest public information and create more convincing, targeted messages and scripts.”
The ministry said they received proactive advice from law enforcement, including the RCMP, to shut the directory down.
“We recognize that people use the directory not only to contact government, but also to understand how government is organized and identify the right area to engage,” the statement read.
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“We will be providing an updated directory page soon, including senior executive contact information for all government ministries. The updated version will direct users to ministry, service, and media contacts, while reducing the public exposure of individual employee contact information and associated cybersecurity risks.”
Jody Toor, MLA for Langley-Willowbrook and government services critic, said a directory of this nature has been in place and available since the 1930s.
“Long before internet even existed,” she said.
“It’s disappointing to see that.”
Toor said that protecting people’s privacy should never be a reason to operate behind closed doors.
“The public has a right to understand how the government is structured, who is responsible for making these decisions and how taxpayer-funded ministries and services are managed,” she added.
“You can protect the privacy without sacrificing the accountability. I feel like British Columbians deserve both.”
Like water carving through stone, one drop at a time. Always in the name of safety and security are our rights erroded….
Eby the dictator. Just like the federal government, no transparency. The taxpayer gets screwed again. We all get doxed, our personal info is constantly being hacked and sold to the highest bidder so your excuse doesnt hold any water with us the taxpayer. There are so many other pressing issues, NDP can’t fight their way out of a paper bag. Come on, do better!
Another stupid thing to do. Making it harder for the public to access who they want. It is like putting a dome over there government and tells their boss (the taxpayers) to shut up and don’t bother us. Maybe influenced by the Chinese Communist way of running things.