If you live in Canada right now, you’re probably already in several political party databases, even if you have never consented to it. If you are, you can’t see or change that record – and have no way of knowing if it's remotely accurate. That’s because federal political parties in Canada are not subject to any meaningful privacy rules or oversight.
Currently, political parties can combine voter records with purchased data from brokers to build detailed voter profiles. After all this cross-referencing, these profiles can include everything from your name and address to your online activity, religion, voting history, gender identity, and donation records. This affects both adults and youth, with only one federal political party explicitly committing not to collect information on those under 14.
In the age of AI-driven political microtargeting, polarization, and deepfakes, the lack of basic privacy for political parties is becoming increasingly impactful and concerning. Yet fundamentally, this isn’t a technical gap from new technologies; it’s a democratic gap that is within our political system’s grasp to fix, if we make it act.
Most people in Canada expect our democracy to work differently than it actually does. A recent national IPSOS poll shows strong public rejection of the status quo that allows parties to set their own privacy rules:
- 80% of Canadians say political parties should follow the same privacy rules as businesses and public institutions
- 84% support the right to access their personal data held by parties
- 85% support the right to correct or delete that data
- 83% want strong penalties for misuse or breaches
- Political parties are the least trusted institution tested, with 60% of Canadians expressing little or no trust in how they handle personal data
Our democratic peers do not exempt their parties from privacy law this way. The UK, New Zealand, and the EU all treat political parties like normal bodies subject to external privacy practice oversight. Even in some provinces, political parties are subject to privacy rules.
There is simply no justification for political parties to continue to exempt themselves from effective privacy rules in Canada. But until that changes, people will continue to have no way of knowing what personal information political parties collect about them, how it is used, or whether it has been shared.
Alberta Data Breach, Voter Privacy Campaign, and 9,000+ Signatures
Recent political-party enabled data breaches have shown what can go wrong when political parties don’t have to follow privacy laws. This year, Canada experienced a major personal data breach case when the Alberta-based separatist group Centurion Project exposed the personal information of nearly three million people. And yet the rules governing political parties' handling of personal data remain largely unchanged.
The Voter Privacy Coalition’s Ipsos polling in Alberta shows that, unsurprisingly, that province now leads the country in concern about this gap. The data shows that Albertans overwhelmingly reject political-party self-regulation and support enforceable privacy rules for voter information. In fact, 84% of Albertans believe political parties should be subject to the same privacy protections as other institutions, reflecting a clear expectation that voter data should not lose protection just because it is being used for political purposes.
These findings have helped galvanize a campaign spearheaded by the Voter Privacy Coalition in Alberta and across Canada. The campaign includes an open letter to Alberta Premier Smith, a federal civil society letter supported by more than 35 organizations and experts, and a parliamentary petition (which has more than 9,000 online signatures). Together, these initiatives call for effective privacy laws and independent oversight of political parties.
This work is now part of a broader national voter privacy campaign that includes ongoing community canvassing in Vancouver and Calgary, as well as a broad coalition of privacy experts, legal scholars, civil society groups, academics, and democracy organizations such as Fair Vote Canada and Apathy is Boring.
These efforts are building pressure for stronger rules that subject political parties’ data practices to real oversight, transparency, and enforceable privacy rights. Safeguarding people’s data in political campaigning is critical to democratic participation and our personal data should not be treated as political currency, without limits or accountability.