Alberta voter info database shut down amidst probes of alleged data breach

EDMONTON – A database belonging to an Alberta separatist group was shut down Thursday as elections officials and Mounties probe an alleged voter-list privacy breach affecting up to three million Albertans.

“The RCMP has initiated an investigation and is working with other law enforcement partners in the province to determine if any offences have been committed,” Alberta’s Mounties said in a statement.

Earlier Thursday, Elections Alberta officials were in court where they argued for and were granted an injunction to have the group, called the Centurion Project, be ordered to take down the database.

Joey Redman, a lawyer for the elections agency, told Court of King’s Bench Justice John Little that the information on the list, and therefore in the database, is “incredibly confidential.”

“Every elector in Alberta who has cast a ballot is included on that list, including people in very sensitive positions,” Redman said.

Redman said the agency believes the list was originally given legally to the pro-independence Republican Party of Alberta. But that list allegedly ended up in the hands of the Centurion Project, which created a publicly accessible database of the private information.

Redman said the agency has yet to confirm how the list managed to change hands.

“I don’t know whether it was provided by a representative of the Republican Party. I don’t know if the list was left out on a desk and somebody picked it up,” he said.

Under provincial law only political parties, members of the legislature, prospective candidates and constituency associations are given copies of the voter list. It can only be used to solicit donations, recruit party members and communicate with electors.

Redman said every individual list distributed by the agency is seeded with fake names to allow investigators to track who uses it.

Investigators acting on information from an anonymous tipster probed the database published by the Centurion Project and matched the fake names to a list given to the Republican Party in 2025, Redman told court.

The Centurion Project is led by longtime political organizer David Parker, who has said their goal is to recruit and identify those who support the idea of Alberta separating from Canada ahead of a potential referendum this fall.

Parker didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but another official with the group, Tim Hoven, said in a statement that it will comply with Elections Alberta’s probe.

Hoven said an unnamed third-party group supplied the datasets it was using and that the app was meant for volunteers to find people they already knew.

“We have taken action to shut down the app until we can ensure that the dataset is compliant with Alberta and federal privacy laws,” Hoven said.

The Canadian Press confirmed that the Centurion Project’s online database listed the home addresses of the province’s prominent politicians, top elections official, senators, judges and Crown prosecutors — information not publicly available through public online telephone databases.

Public access to the database was shut down Thursday afternoon, in line with the injunction. The Centurion Project has four days to identify every person or entity that has fully or partially accessed the list and provide contact information for those who have, Elections Alberta said.

The agency said in a statement it had received “credible information” that the group may have had possession of the list on Monday and issued cease-and-desist letters the following day. On Wednesday, the agency said, investigators and police attended a Centurion Project meeting in Edmonton to hand-deliver a cease-and-desist letter.

Parker is best known for organizing a grassroots movement called Take Back Alberta. It helped organize United Conservative party members to cast ballots to take down former premier Jason Kenney in a confidence vote. It later helped galvanize support to help Danielle Smith win a party race to take Kenney’s place.

Smith went on to become premier in her own right in the 2023 election. 

She attended Parker’s wedding. But two years ago, she distanced herself from him over some of his social media posts personally criticizing federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife — posts that prompted Smith to tell Parker to “delete his X account and get some help.”

Early last year, Elections Alberta fined Parker and Take Back Alberta more than $100,000 for a range of violations.

Cameron Davies, leader of the Republican Party, told The Canadian Press on Thursday it has not been officially contacted by Elections Alberta.

He said the party issued a notice to the Centurion Project that any information the group may have allegedly received — if it came from the party — is not to be used.

“We were proactive on that before the injunction today, and we’ll be fully complying with Elections Alberta,” Davies said.

The fact Elections Alberta went public at all is unusual. It’s prohibited under law from commenting on or even confirming investigations. But in a statement, the agency said it felt it was critical Albertans be aware of the data breach.

In another statement later Thursday, it said Albertans should be wary of texts from unknown parties claiming to be able to help reclaim private information.

Elections Alberta added that people should “watch for unexpected mail or missing statements, emails, or phone calls such as debt collection calls for unknown accounts.”

The province’s information and privacy commissioner has been notified, it said.

Opposition NDP leader Naheed Nenshi said his party did not leak the database and said the Republican Party should be deregistered if it did.

“It’s dangerous, it puts people’s lives at risk, and it puts our democracy at risk,” Nenshi said. 

Progressive Tory Party leader Peter Guthrie said his party doesn’t have an elector list but would never consider doing such a thing. “That would run directly counter to the standards we’re committed to,” he said.

Dave Prisco, the spokesperson for the United Conservative Party, said in a statement: “The UCP did not provide the list of electors to any unauthorized outside group or individual. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.”

Breaches of the law that dictates use of the voter list can lead to fines of up to $100,000 and imprisonment of one year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 30, 2026.