UPDATE: On Friday afternoon Premier Christy Clark told reporters in Victoria that she had left a voice message for NDP leader John Horgan so she could apologize for accusing the NDP of hacking the Liberal Party website.
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Delta South MLA Vicki Huntington has been identified as the original source who blew the whistle concerning the breach of the B.C. Liberal Party’s official website, which set off a firestorm of allegations between the Liberals and NDP.
Province newspaper columnist Michael Smyth identified Huntington as his source in a column published Friday morning. Smyth originally broke the story earlier this week. Huntington also issued a statement to fully disclose how the situation unfolded.
She said early last week her office discovered that a webpage on the Liberal Party's official Internet site was publishing what appeared to be sensitive personal information. She said no username, password, or encryption device was required to access that information, which was on a spreadsheet that anyone in the public could view. She made it clear that none of her staff viewed any of the information that had been protected.
“The publication of sensitive information on the Internet raised critical questions not only about how political parties capture, store and use personal data, but also about the security of that data,” added Huntington. “I made the decision to alert a journalist, as these questions are in the public interest and deserve broader scrutiny. Unfortunately, over the past few days the public dialogue about these questions has been diverted by unfounded allegations of 'hacking.'”
The information was a list of about 100 Vancouver Island residents who had filled out an online Liberal Party survey. The Liberals sent out an email apologizing to all the residents affected by the breach.
But once the story was made public by Smyth, Premier Christy Clark accused the NDP of allegedly hacking the website, comments that outraged NDP leader John Horgan, who has called for an apology and a retraction of her comments. While Clark has backtracked a bit, she has refused to apologize.
Clark’s accusations also outraged Huntington, who then contacted Smyth giving him permission to reveal her as his original source.
“I might add that it is outrageous that the premier would accuse someone in the legislature of working to subvert the democratic process when her own office has actively engaged in triple deletes; used government employees to develop strategies for 'quick wins' in ethnic communities; allowed privileged access for wealthy donors; and ignored calls for parliamentary reform,” added Huntington. “The single issue before us, and the question the premier is deflecting, is: what was private information — which anyone could access — doing on a public Liberal Party website?”
Huntington said by going public she hopes this will be some clarity to the matter and helps shift discussions back to the very real issue of the inappropriate mishandling of private information and the political use of personal data.
On Thursday, the province’s independent Information and Privacy Commissioner said an investigation into the website breach has been launched.
