EDMONTON — Court of King's Bench Justice John Little issued an order for The Centurion Project to remove its list of Alberta electors from its website and stop sharing information about individuals after an Elections Alberta investigation reveals information came from Alberta's official List of Electors. Little granted Elections Alberta's injunction after a court hearing, following news that the watchdog issued a cease-and-desist order over concerns that its database, used to organize efforts to educate Albertans about independence, was extracted from the restricted government list. Elections Alberta told the court on Thursday that an investigation by the watchdog found that the Centurion Project's database included information from a copy of the List of Electors issued to the Republican Party of Alberta, which is one of the limited groups authorized to access the information. .The Centurion Project has been open about having the database, but leaders have not fully disclosed its sources.It was used as a resource for members to search through roughly 3 million Alberta electors and "claim" individuals they know, becoming responsible for educating those individuals about Alberta independence. "You just need an email and your name, and you'll find that we've taken public data, we've scraped public data from 411, from Canada Post and all these places you can get information on people, and we have 3 million voting-age Albertans in the database," said David Parker, one of the Centurion Project's leaders, on Monday's Shaun Newman Podcast.Information in the database included names, addresses, postal codes, unique identifier numbers, and electoral divisions. Elections Alberta Counsel Joseph Redmona called the information found on the list "incredibly confidential,' and told Little that the injunction was needed quickly to stop it from spreading. .A statement released by Elections Alberta on Thursday revealed that the watchdog first received notice of the Centurion Project's potential use of the list on Monday, at which point they immediately began an investigation into the allegations.They then issued a cease-and-desist order to the Centurion Project on Tuesday, instructing them to stop using any information they may have been extracting from the List of Electors.Elections Alberta, accompanied by Edmonton Police Service officers, attended a Centurion Project event on Wednesday, at which point they handed the group's leaders a second order."It has come to Elections Alberta’s attention an inappropriate use and/or distribution of the List of Electors by a legitimate list recipient may have occurred," reads a statement from Elections Alberta issued on Thursday prior to the court hearing. "... There has been no breach of Elections Alberta’s databases or systems. The unfolding situation is believed to involve a third party and to have occurred as a result of the inappropriate use and/or distribution of the list of electors by a registered political party that was a legitimate recipient of the list.".The Election Act grants registered political parties and constituency associations, MLAs, political candidates during an election campaign, and election officers access to the List of Electors "Section 19.1 of the Election Act sets out the requirements that a person or registered party must follow regarding protection of the list. Recipients of the list must take all reasonable steps to protect the List of Electors and the information contained in it from loss and unauthorized use," Elections Alberta's statement reads. "They must immediately notify Elections Alberta if the list or information has been lost. A person or MLA may NOT share the list or the information with anyone for any use not expressly authorized in Section 20 of the Election Act."Specific security features are added to each list to help track individuals authorized to have a copy and identify the source of any unauthorized distribution. One measure is a collection of unique fictitious names and numbers in each dataset. Elections Alberta conducted an investigation of the database and traced the source back to the Republican Party of Alberta. .The Alberta RCMP have initiated a criminal investigation into the allegations. "The Alberta RCMP can confirm correspondence from an individual associated to the Alberta NDP raising concerns about potential misuse of the provincial voter list maintained by Elections Alberta," reads an RCMP statement issued Thursday. "The RCMP has initiated an investigation and is working with other law enforcement partners in the province to determine if any offence(s) have been committed respecting the dissemination or handling of the information contained in the voter list."Individuals who violate the provisions in the Elections Act are liable to a fine of up to $100,000, and/or, if found guilt in court, up to one-year in prison.According to Elections Alberta, as of Thursday afternoon, information from the List of Electors is no longer available on the Centurion Project website.Parker posted on X shortly after noon on Thursday and said The Centurion Project will have a statement "early this afternoon."
