Canada's NDP

Skip to main content

April 23rd, 2013

NDP uncovers thousands of privacy breaches affecting hundreds of thousands of Canadians

Questions by NDP MP Charlie Angus forced Tony Clement to finally admit that privacy breaches are a serious problem in the federal government.

On March 6th, Angus tabled a written question in the House of Commons asking for all data on privacy breaches in the federal government for the last ten years. The response, which can be found here, shows that there have been at least 3,134 privacy breaches by the federal government over the past ten years, affecting no less than 725,350 Canadians.

Since the reporting was not complete, the number may be higher.

The response also shows that less than 13% of these recorded breaches were reported to the Privacy Commissioner. When it comes to protecting the privacy of Canadians, this government has a lot of work to do.