Saanich mayor can say ‘I told you so,’ and does
Richard Atwell was dismissed as a paranoid, conspiracy-obsessed kook when the newly elected mayor complained he was being spied on by his own city hall.
But after Monday’s blistering report from the province’s independent privacy commissioner proved him right, the rookie mayor of Saanich could say I told you so.
“I was right and it seems everyone else was wrong,” Atwell said. “The district clearly fell flat on its face. I’m just glad to be vindicated.”
Vindicated indeed, while the district of Saanich should be deeply embarrassed.
Atwell won last fall’s election in a shocking upset, defeating long-serving incumbent mayor Frank Leonard in the affluent Victoria suburb.
Atwell then delivered another shocker: a multi-bombshell news conference in which he alleged city staff installed ‘spyware’ on his computer.
The Spector 360 program is marketed as “employee-monitoring” software, capable of recording virtually every move a computer user makes.
It was installed on the mayor’s computer and those of several others at Saanich municipal hall. And it was illegal. “The law has been in place for more than 20 years, yet the district appears to not understand its most basic privacy provisions,” Elizabeth Denham, the legislature’s independent privacy watchdog, concluded in Monday’s report.
“Staff enabled tools that would collect sensitive personal information from employees including personal websites visited, online banking transactions, confidential correspondence and private passwords or images.”
Denham rejected the district’s explanation the spyware was meant to improve security and foil hackers, saying it went far beyond that. She also debunked the district’s suggestion it was recommended by an independent security auditor.
The most troubling finding: The software collected the information of private citizens, not just politicians.
“The report talks about medical records, email, banking,” Atwell said.
“All that communication … would be accessible by somebody, stored by somebody and potentially looked at by somebody.”
Was the information misused or improperly disclosed? Impossible to say, Denham concluded, because the district did not activate the “user access logs” in the Spector 360 software.
Apparently, district staff wanted to know what the mayor and others were doing, but did not want a record kept of what was done with the personal information after it was intercepted.
The Atwell saga is a strange one. In the addition to the spying allegations, he also alleged Saanich police stopped his car four times and twice made him blow into a breathalyzer. (His harassment complaint is still being investigated.)
He also initially lied about an extramarital affair. (He’s working it out with his wife.)
But while the soap opera has more twists and turns to come, the mayor won the day Monday.
The case proved Denham is one of the province’s best public watchdogs. Her investigation was swift and professional. And her report is required reading for any government thinking of spying on its employees or elected officials.
“I think we’ve actually improved things through this whole ordeal,” Atwell said.
“It wasn’t an ideal way of doing it, but I think as a result we’re going to have better government for all British Columbians.”
Nothing kooky about that.