There could be a minor scandal brewing in the Ontario PC leadership race.
The Conservative Party of Canada has been forced to send a cease-and-desist letter to their provincial cousins in order to defend themselves against contraventions of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) regarding improper use of federal membership lists.
Party official Doug Finley writes to the four provincial campaigns, "I would like to remind all campaign teams that Conservative party data is the property of the Conservative Party of Canada and is not to be used by any of the leadership campaign teams in any form."
Actually, Mr. Finley is incorrect. The data in question remains the personal property of the members themselves and cannot be provided to a third-party without their consent. There are significant penalties for contravention of privacy laws.
The Ontario PC Party response has been surprisingly blasé: "Provincial party president Ken Zeise, who was copied on Finley's missive, said it's a moot point now since the cutoff to join the PC party to vote in the June 27 leadership contest passed at 10 p.m. yesterday. 'Doug's letter didn't go into much detail and I didn't feel the need to follow up,' Zeise said in an interview. 'As of Thursday at 10 p.m., who will care?'"
Actually, if any one of the thousands of CPC members who were likely contacted as a result of this privacy slip were to complain to the Privacy Commissioner about the actions of a specific campaign, the result would be a lengthy investigation into any wrong-doing.
And neither the Ontario PC Party nor the CPC would enjoy that investigation, as it leads directly into federal MP offices.
As the Star story notes, "A source close to one candidate suggested 'every campaign is using part of the federal list' because Conservative MPs can easily share it with the leadership hopefuls they are supporting."
In fact, the Ontario or federal privacy commissioners may wish to undertake a review on their own, given the sizeable nature of the databases involved, and the public acknowledgement that a privacy breach is occurring.
Update: The federal privacy commissioner's office has pointed out that federal privacy legislation, including PIPEDA, does not apply to political parties, but it's an issue they are studying.
