Sharing voter info to boost turnout worth the privacy risk, says P.E.I. elections watchdog

All provinces share data from their voter registries with political parties at election time — but only British Columbia includes those parties under its privacy legislation. P.E.I.'s chief electoral officer says Islanders would be better protected if this province did the same.

Sharing voter info to boost turnout worth the privacy risk, says P.E.I. elections watchdog 'Yes, it benefits the political parties.... But I do feel that it has a benefit for democracy' As the four candidates vying to become the new MLA for P.E.I.’s District 16 canvass door to door, each is armed with a list of more than 4,600 names and addresses provided by the province’s electoral agency. Just like every other province, Prince Edward Island provides information from its voter registry to registered political parties and candidates at election time.

But after a massive privacy breach in Alberta this year, there are renewed questions around what information gets shared with political parties — and a perceived lack of oversight over what the parties do with that information. Elections Alberta issues cease-and-desist letters over voter info breach, privacy commissioner launches probe Proposed class-action lawsuit filed over alleged Alberta voter privacy breach Nearly three million Alberta voters had their names and addresses shared online. Elections Alberta said it traced the information back to data it shared with a registered political party, the Republican Party of Alberta.

The province’s chief electoral officer called it "the worst breach in Canadian history involving voter data," and noted that some people feared for their safety, including victims of domestic violence whose current addresses could have been discovered by their former partners. By law, Elections P.E.I. is required to share voter names, civic addresses, district and poll numbers with registered parties and candidates during an election. The Election Act also requires the agency to provide updates to parties on election day at least every 30 minutes showing who has and has not voted.

This is all in line with information shared in other provinces, including Alberta. Tim Garrity, P.E.I.’s chief electoral officer, said the reason the information is shared is to help parties get out the vote. “Yes, it benefits the political parties and the candidates, absolutely.

But I do feel that it has a benefit for democracy,” Garrity said. Helping candidates target voters keeps those voters informed, Garrity said. “They may not know who the candidates are.

They may not know there’s an actual election going on.” Garrity said he believes the reward — increased voter turnout — is worth the potential risk to Islanders’ privacy. According to the Election Act it is an offence for parties, candidates or MLAs to use the list of electors for anything other than communicating with voters, which includes campaigning and seeking donations.

Offenders could face a fine of up to $2,000. Guidelines from Elections P.E.I. — which don’t carry the force of law — further clarify that parties can’t use the list of electors for commercial or personal purposes or sell the information. The guidelines also call on parties to limit the number of people with access to the data, keep the information in password-protected computers and any printouts in a locked filing cabinet.

The guidelines suggest that parties delete or shred the information after the election — but Garrity said by that point parties have probably copied the information into their own databases, and there’s nothing he can do about that. That’s because, in P.E.I. and nearly everywhere in Canada, political parties aren’t covered under the privacy laws that stipulate what private businesses, health-care providers and other groups can do with your personal information. “We don't have control over their list and what they do and what information they have,” Garrity said, adding that the safeguards Elections P.E.I. has included in its guidelines represent “the best that we can do with the law the way that it's written today.”

Efforts by the federal government to tighten the privacy rules for federal parties have been met with skepticism from privacy experts. Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, concluded on his personal blog in April that despite amendments passed in the House of Commons this spring, “The reality is that political parties still face the least onerous privacy obligations in Canada.... The parties demand far stronger compliance measures for the private sector than they are willing to impose on themselves.”

In an interview with CBC News, Privacy and Access Council of Canada president Sharon Polsky took aim at a requirement that parties post a privacy policy on their websites — but doesn’t stipulate what that policy has to include. “We’re going to collect everything we can about you and from you, and what we see when we come knocking at your door, whether it’s a cross or a mezuzah on your door or a kid’s bike or a wheelchair,” Polsky said, providing a hypothetical example of a policy that would meet the law’s requirements.

“We’re going to collect as much information as we can about you, we’re going to do with it what we see fit. You can ask us what we have but we’re not going to tell you because we don’t have to. And that is the law.”

What's in your file? Federal political parties don't have to tell you The case for making political parties follow the same privacy rules as corporations In 2018, Canada’s privacy commissioners issued a joint call for political parties across the country to be brought under privacy restrictions similar to those governing other institutions. So far, B.C. is the only jurisdiction to do that.

The office of P.E.I.’s privacy commissioner, Denise Doiron, told CBC News via email that the commissioner “would support any legislative changes that would help better protect the personal information of voters from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.” But the commissioner did not include any recommendations for such changes in the package of information she submitted in December 2025 as part of a review of the province's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Including political parties under the act would “definitely [be] beneficial because it does provide a more structured framework as to what can be done with the information,” Garrity said, adding making that change would “help ensure that people and their information is as protected as it can be.”

There is a way for Islanders to remain on the voter registry but have their information withheld from lists sent to parties and candidates. It’s called personal obscuring, and Garrity said Elections P.E.I. will offer it to people who call, but is “not encouraging that for everybody.... It is something that we take on a case-by-case basis.”

There’s is no similar way to keep your name off lists sent by Elections Canada to federal parties. The only way to do that is to have your name removed from the voter registry, meaning you would have to register again the next time you vote in a federal election.