Security Breaches
Stats Canada says your census data is safe. Locked down. Encrypted. Protected by the best systems money can buy. That's the line. Here's what actually happened.
The Lost Forms
In 2018, CBC filed an Access to Information request and got back something Stats Canada probably didn't want to talk about. Twenty separate incidents involving hundreds of completed census forms. Lost. Misplaced. Mailed to the wrong address. Left on a subway car.
Twenty incidents. Hundreds of forms. And Stats Canada had decided not to make most of them public.
So much for airtight security.
The 2017 Server Hack
In March 2017, reports came out that Statistics Canada servers had been targeted in a cyber attack. Stats Canada's response was, more or less, "no harm done." Which is exactly what every organisation says right after a breach, right up until it turns out there was harm done.
The Lockheed Martin Hack
Remember the company that was supposed to keep census data safe? In May 2011, Reuters reported that hackers had broken into Lockheed Martin's systems. The same Lockheed Martin that Stats Canada had contracted to handle Canadian census data.
Stats Canada's response at the time was that Lockheed never had access to the actual answers. Maybe. But if the company handling your data plumbing gets hacked, you don't get to say "nothing to see here" and expect people to believe you.
The 2011 Government Breaches
That same month, multiple Canadian government departments got hit with data breaches. Some of them had previously denied there was any problem. Then it turned out there was a problem.
This is the pattern. Deny, deny, deny, then admit, then promise it won't happen again. Then it happens again.
The 2006 Breach
Back in October 2006, there was a security breach involving census data. It made the news briefly, then vanished. We still have the write-up here.
Why This Matters
Every single time there's a breach, the official response is the same. "It was minor." "No personal information was compromised." "We take this very seriously."
And every single time, a few months later, we find out it was worse than they said.
The point isn't that Stats Canada is uniquely bad at security. The point is that no system is safe. Not theirs. Not Lockheed's. Not anyone's. So when they ask you to hand over your name, your address, your income, your family details, and they promise it'll all be fine, you should think about how many times that promise has already been broken.
What You Can Do
Don't do the census online. Ask for a paper form. Give the minimum the law requires and nothing more. Keep your own copy of anything you send.
And if you hear about a breach that didn't make the news, tell us. We'll add it to the list.