Security experts say a leak of Alberta’s provincial list of voters – nearly three million names, addresses and phone numbers – has created a potential public safety and political interference crisis that could have ramifications for decades.

Personal information could be used by criminals for everything from fraud and extortion to kidnapping and witness tampering. Authoritarian regimes, like Russia or China, could use the information to interfere in Alberta’s politics by directly contacting voters.

Both Elections Alberta and the RCMP have launched separate investigations to determine how the private information of millions of citizens from Alberta’s official List of Electors ended up posted online by a separatist group called the Centurion Project. It allegedly accessed the database provided to the Republican Party of Alberta.

“For organized crime, that kind of information is gold,” said Neil LeMay, a former RCMP major crimes investigator who now runs a private investigation and security consulting company.

“It can be copied, traded, sold, cross-referenced and weaponized. In the hands of the wrong people, it becomes a criminal Rolodex — not for one election cycle, but potentially for decades.”

“Our data is in the wind, and that is a terrifying prospect,” said Patrick Lennox, former manager of criminal intelligence for the RCMP’s federal policing programs in Alberta.

Lennox said Russia, China and even the United States may have already scooped up the information.

“I think any authoritarian regime that is looking to undermine liberal democracies would be very interested in this type of data, because it enables them to communicate directly with citizens in a province that is about to have a separatist referendum,” he said.

“This is a treasure trove for them to be able to micro-target individuals and influence them to vote for separation.”

Former enforcement officials also say there is the obvious threat posed to the safety of police officers, politicians, judges, lawyers, prosecutors, academics, journalists, doctors – especially those who promote vaccines or abortion – and myriad other professions and groups like those vulnerable to domestic abuse, and senior citizens, who are already targeted by scammers.

Meanwhile, Alberta’s separatists continue their push to force a vote on independence from Canada despite the ongoing political fallout from the massive data breach. Later in the day (Monday), Alberta’s main separatist organization, Stay Free Alberta, is expected to present a petition to Elections Alberta. They claim to have gathered more than the required 178,000 valid signatures to trigger a referendum in October on Alberta’s separation from Canada.

The United Conservative Party, or UCP, government of Premier Danielle Smith has already scheduled a provincewide vote on Oct. 19 on nine questions. Smith has claimed the questions will provide a mandate for her government on Alberta taking more control over immigration and constitutional reform, including more power to appoint judges and to opt out of federal programs.

“I’m surprised that nobody has actually called for a public inquiry into the data leak yet,” said University of Alberta political scientist Jared Wesley.

“There are so many different folks involved, and the stakes are so high that it’s important that before we start voting on a raft of very important constitutional and policy questions in the fall, let alone a possible referendum on separatism, that we clear the air.

“We need to ensure that everyone can see what happened in this situation, and everyone who is speaking about it should be doing so in public as much as possible and under oath,” said Wesley, who was in the midst of having a security system installed in his home when Global News called for an interview.

Even for those immersed in Alberta politics, it is difficult to fathom how this data leak – one of the biggest in Canadian history – could possibly happen.

The public learned about it due to the enterprise of independent Edmonton-based journalist Jeremy Appel, who first broke the story after he attended the first meeting of the Centurion Project in Edmonton on Wednesday.

The Centurion Project is the brainchild of well-known Alberta political operative and separatist activist, David Parker. It’s a data-driven, grassroots effort that organizes and trains volunteers to identify and recruit supporters for Alberta’s independence movement.

Allegedly using information from Alberta’s List of Electors, the project created an app that allows users to search for people they may know by name or address, enabling them to reach out to them directly.

In one training video, the Centurion Project featured the home address of former NDP leader Rachel Notley, who, during her time as premier, had received at least 11 death threats.

After Parker finished speaking at the event, Appel witnessed an investigator from Elections Alberta, accompanied by two Edmonton police officers, informing another of the Centurion Project’s founders that it should not have the elector’s list and that they were under investigation. A video of the interaction has been posted on TikTok.

Only official political parties, candidates, constituency associations, and MLAs are permitted access to the List of Electors, and they must agree in writing to a list of rules about how that information can be used and by whom.

Elections Alberta salts the electors’ lists with the names of fake voters, so if one copy of a list is leaked, the agency can trace its origins. An analysis determined the list came from the Republican Party of Alberta, headed by Cam Davies, who, like Parker, has a well-documented history in Alberta as a political operative who pushes boundaries.

During the 2017 UCP leadership campaign, Davies was a key player in a scheme by the campaign of Jason Kenney to run a so-called kamikaze candidate to attack a third candidate.

Kenney won the leadership and became premier, but years later was pushed out through an internal UCP campaign, Take Back Alberta, founded by Parker, who had previously worked as a political organizer under former prime minister Stephen Harper.

There is evidence on social media that Parker’s project supported the Alberta Prosperity Project’s petition campaign. In a post on X, Jeff Rath, a main leader of the Free Alberta separatists, directed people to the Centurion Project.

Davies has said he granted access to vendors under contract, as is allowed by Alberta’s Election Act, to conduct political work, such as contacting voters and soliciting donations. He said he rescinded that access through cease-and-desist letters after the database’s alleged misuse by the Centurion Project.

Davies did not respond to an email from Global News asking which vendors he had hired and whether the RCMP had executed a search warrant at his home.

Parker told The Globe and Mail he bought a compilation of information from a third-party vendor for $45,000. Citing a non-disclosure agreement he refused to disclose the vendor’s name.

Elections Alberta has said Davies is responsible for the information he provided to his vendors.

In an emergency hearing last week, Elections Alberta successfully obtained an injunction that forced the Centurion Project to take down the database. Parker said he is fully cooperating with the Elections Alberta investigation, which is expected to determine how the List of Electors went from Davies to Parker.

There is another bizarre and troubling twist to the story.

Writing in the publication she co-founded, The Line, Calgary journalist Jen Gerson disclosed that, after receiving a detailed anonymous tip, she had warned Elections Alberta on March 31 that there was a serious breach. Gerson had determined that anyone with even rudimentary web skills could download the entire database.

The next day, an Elections Alberta investigator contacted Gerson. But on April 10, Elections Commissioner Paula Hale told Gerson her information was compelling, “but with the evidence currently available there are not reasonable grounds to allow me to direct an investigation into a potential breach of Section 20(2) of the Election Act by the Centurion Project.”

Back in May 2025, Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure warned the UCP that changes they were making to the Elections Act would create a much higher threshold for justifying an investigation.

letter re Bill 54 Election Statutes Amendment Act

As an independent office of the legislature, Elections Alberta strives to be politically neutral. But in an extraordinary recent news release, the agency explained that the legislative changes “requires that we must have ‘reasonable grounds to believe that an offence has occurred.’

“This is similar to the amount of evidence, that in a criminal matter, police would need to arrest someone. Reasonable grounds is a much higher standard than ‘grounds to warrant,” which had been the threshold under the old legislation.

Elections Alberta, in its statement, said it didn’t receive credible information until April 27 that the Centurion Project was in possession of the List of Electors and “inquiries into the validity of this information began immediately.”

The Alberta NDP said it “alerted authorities” on April 17 about the breach. NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi is now calling for McClure, the chief electoral officer, to be summoned to an emergency meeting to explain when he became aware of the breach “and why action appears to have been taken so late.”

Even as public safety and privacy experts issue dire warnings, and the opposition point the finger of blame at the UCP’s shortsighted structuring of the Elections Act, Smith, who is on a trade mission in the United Kingdom, said that her government is aware of the potential breach and that those responsible must be held accountable.

Lennox, the former RCMP intelligence manager, said Smith’s response was totally inadequate.

“The minute it became known, the premier should have been on TV or on radio assuring Albertans that the data leak will be traced to the ends of the earth,” he said.

“She should have said that searchable databases of their information will be taken down instantly, and any copies of that data will be hunted down with every ounce of their powers and resources.”

Charles Rusnell is an Edmonton-based independent investigative journalist.