Nova Scotia mobile home park residents concerned privacy was breached in document sent to residents

Residents of a Beaver Bank, N.S., mobile home park are concerned after a document about lot price increases — with people’s names and addresses on it — were released to hundreds of their neighbours, breaching their privacy.

Krista Alford, who lives at the park, is worried that not only is the information disclosed to the 510 other homes, she now has to trust them not to breach her privacy.

“I don’t know who those people are that have my information. I do have some neighbours that are security officers who sign their names on legal documents on a daily basis and now their names are out there,” she said.

She says she contacted the tenancy officer on the document, who repeatedly told her to review the Residential Tenancy Act.

“It says the notice of rental increase must include a) the landlords name and contact information, which it does and b) the name of the tenants on the lease which to me, would be my name on the lease not my name and 509 other people on the list,” she said.

Halifax Regional Municipality District 14 Councillor Lisa Blackburn says she’s heard from concerned residents.

“I had one woman call me in tears because there was a family member that she was trying to avoid for years and with this release of the information, she’s concerned now that that might get back to the family member and she’s feeling less safe as a result,” Blackburn said.

“So certainly there are many reasons why people want their private information kept private and safety is one of them.”

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Halifax-based privacy lawyer David Fraser agrees this should not have happened.

“Mistakes happen. But, it does result in the disclosure of information that was not consented to. It was not reasonable in the circumstances and triggers what’s called a breach of security,” he explained.

Alford says this has been so concerning to her, she wishes she could move elsewhere, but knows that’s not a reality right now.

“With the rising costs of, you know, apartments and housing and everything and the difficulty of finding them, (it’s) definitely a concern right now. So we either stay and put up with this or we have to have the hassle of dealing with where we are going to go,” she said.

Global News tried repeatedly to reach the owners of Woodbine Park, but have not heard back from them.