Voters’ data in Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry may have been compromised in the significant data leak from Elections Ontario. The information includes names, addresses, dates of birth and whether or not the elector voted in the past election.

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Cornwall - July 19, 2012 - Voters’ data in Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry may have been compromised in the significant data leak from Elections Ontario. The information includes names, addresses, dates of birth and whether or not the elector voted in the past election.

Jim McDonell, MPP commented: “This is a serious and unacceptable data breach. Although they do not know where the two USB keys are today, there is a strong possibility of them being in the wrong hands. Proper security of information procedures were not followed at Elections Ontario. I appreciate the Chief Electoral Officer taking responsibility, committing to get to the bottom of the issue and to implementing security strategies to ensure such a breach does not happen again”.

Elections Ontario has reported the breach to the OPP and engaged external legal counsel and a specialist security firm to carry out an investigation into the data breach.

Jim McDonell, MPP encourages consumers to be vigilant: “If this data falls into the wrong hands and is decrypted, there is a strong possibility it could be used to attempt to get credit cards. Consumers living in the affected ridings should pay extra attention to their accounts and incoming mail for any suspicious activity. I encourage all Ontarians to be pro-active and obtain credit file disclosures within the next 3 or 4 months. These are free copies of a person’s file with a consumer credit rating agency and include records of open accounts and attempted openings. I have made these forms available on my website and they can be downloaded from the agencies’ websites directly.”

In Canada, consumers are allowed one free Consumer Credit File Disclosure per year from each of the two consumer credit rating agencies: Equifax and TransUnion.