Alberta NDP promoted MLA one month after he breached provincial vaccine records | True North - Rachel Emmanuel:
July 15, 2022 -"Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley promoted former NDP MLA Thomas Dang to the party’s Democracy and Ethics critic role, even while the Official Opposition was aware he hacked the provincial Covid-19 vaccine records one month earlier, True North has learned. Dang was charged in June under the province’s Health Information Act for illegally attempting to access private information contained in the Alberta Health vaccine portal in September 2021. He faces a fine of $200,000 if convicted.
"Dang has said he accessed the site to test vulnerabilities on the newly launched Alberta Health vaccine portal, and upon finding one — and uncovering a woman’s healthcare number in the process — he informed NDP chief of staff Jeremy Nolais and NDP director of communications Benjamin Alldritt, court documents show. He was promoted to the critic portfolio one month later, in October, until he left the party to sit as an Independent MLA once the RCMP began investigating his actions in December....
"In September, ... Dang used Premier Jason Kenney’s birth date and vaccination dates, which are publicly available, to crack the site’s privacy safeguards. Between Sept. 19 and 23, Dang’s computer program made 1.78 million queries using Kenney’s personal information. Dang admitted to RCMP the queries were randomly generated guesses aimed at revealing the premier’s health care number.... On Sept. 23, Dang successfully uncovered a ... health-care number [that] belonged to a woman sharing the premier’s date of birth and vaccine month. Dang ran two subsequent manual tests to verify. Court documents say he then notified Nolais and Alldritt, who sent an email to Alberta Health communications director Steve Buick.... One month later, Dang was given a critic title.
"Alldritt declined to comment when contacted by True North on Wednesday, other than to say, 'Unfortunately we don’t have dealings with True North'.... Dang did not immediately respond for comment from True North on Thursday."
Read more: https://tnc.news/2022/07/15/ndp-dang/
Unsealed court records suggest Notley misled Albertans | Western Standard - Arthur C. Green:
July 15, 2022 - "Newly unsealed court records suggest NDP Leader Rachel Notley misled Albertans when she denied knowing that Edmonton-South MLA Thomas Dang hacked Alberta’s vaccine records system using information that was not his own, former police officer and Chief Government Whip Brad Rutherford said. On Wednesday, Provincial Court Judge Shelagh Creagh unsealed damning court records that show Notley’s office knew Dang conducted a shocking 1.78 million illegal health record searches in September....
"According to the unsealed records, ... Dang told RCMP in a January interview that he got a hit on the premier’s private information early in the morning on September 23. The investigator believes that 20 minutes later, Dang performed a manual confirmation using the same information. Approximately two hours after that, Dang performed what is thought to have been a third confirmation. Eight minutes after that is when Notley’s staff informed the health minister’s office....
"Notley told Postmedia back in March that ... 'when Dang raised the issue of problems with the website with NDP staff, a staffer informed the health ministry, but she was never aware of personal information being accessed, nor did she or her staff receive personal information,' Postmedia reported."
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