The Canadian military has confirmed that a hard drive found by a Halifax man at a recycling depot belongs to them.
The hard drive was handed over to the military Friday afternoon. It was brought to their attention following an investigation by Global News.
READ MORE: Military hard drive containing personal information found by Halifax man
Pete Stevens found the drive at a recycling depot nearly a year ago. When he ran a software recovery program on it, he discovered it contained thousands of pages of information.
Stevens was able to locate encrypted emails, training manuals and blueprints within minutes of searching the drive.
There was also personal information from a number of military members stored on it, including names, addresses and phone numbers.
“It seemed to me like some of the documents contained information on personnel that I probably, or nobody, should be able to access unless they had the proper clearance,” said Stevens.
The Military says technology experts have been examining the drive and its contents since Stevens turned it over to them. They confirmed Saturday that it does, in fact, belong to the military.
Most of the information appears to be from the years 1999 through 2006 and deals with HMCS Halifax.
“It is ours, even if from another period, and issues are evident in its poor disposal,” Rear Admiral John Newton, Commander of Maritime Forces Atlantic, told Global News.
The military is still working to determine how the drive ended up being disposed of with sensitive information still on it.
“There are lessons in this, even if dated, that I am actioning in my Command,” said Newton.
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