I’ve been watching the reaction to Alberta’s latest data breach involving the Centurion Project voter list leak, and I can’t help feeling like something about this story doesn’t add up.

Naheed Nenshi has been everywhere over the past several days calling the breach “dangerous,” “massive,” and one of the worst in Canadian history. Much of the media coverage has followed the same line, focusing heavily on alleged separatist connections and the fear and anxiety this release has created.

Albertans are being told they should be outraged. We’re hearing warnings about threats to democracy, personal safety and political extremism. There are calls for investigations, penalties and even demands that political groups allegedly tied to the matter be deregistered.

That’s a serious response.

But it also feels like a selective one.

Because this is far from the first major data breach involving Albertans or Canadians. Not even remotely close. And when I look back at some of the breaches we’ve seen over the last few years, I honestly don’t remember this same level of outrage from politicians or the media. I don’t remember wall-to-wall coverage. I don’t remember people speaking as though society itself was under attack.

Take the 2024 breach involving PowerSchool. More than 700,000 Albertans were affected. Students, parents and teachers had information exposed, including birth dates, home addresses and even medical details like allergies and health conditions. Some of the records reportedly stretched back years.

If we’re going to talk about what’s “dangerous,” I would argue children’s medical and personal information falling into the wrong hands is dangerous.

Then there was the 2023 ransomware attack involving the Alberta Dental Service Corporation. About 1.47 million Albertans had information compromised, including names, addresses and in some cases banking information.

Again, where was the nonstop outrage?

And it doesn’t stop there.

In 2025, more than 880,000 Canadians connected to accounts with the Canada Revenue Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada had personal information exposed after hackers exploited a flaw in a third-party authentication service. Phone numbers and email addresses were stolen and later used in phishing campaigns targeting Canadians.

That same issue was reportedly tied to a vulnerability involving 2Keys Corporation during a routine software update.

And if we go back even further, the list keeps growing. The 2020 GCKey breach compromised thousands of federal accounts. A 2024 cyberattack targeting Global Affairs Canada raised concerns about foreign-backed actors accessing sensitive systems. In 2011, hackers forced shutdowns across federal departments after stealing government information.

So no, this isn’t new. It isn’t unprecedented. And it certainly isn’t the first time Canadians have faced serious privacy breaches.

That’s why I struggle with the way this latest incident is being framed.

To be clear, I’m not defending whoever leaked the voter list. I don’t know the full involvement of the Centurion Project in the broader Free Alberta movement, nor do I know why the information was released in the first place. If laws were broken, there should absolutely be a proper investigation.

But what concerns me is how quickly public outrage is being directed toward an entire political movement before facts are fully established. We’re seeing broad labels like “dangerous” attached not just to the breach itself, but to people and groups associated with certain political views. Law enforcement, politicians and parts of the media appear willing to move straight to public condemnation before the investigation is even complete.

That’s a dangerous road too.

What’s also missing from much of the conversation is reassurance. In past breaches involving healthcare information, financial details or children’s records, public officials generally focused on mitigation, monitoring and protecting affected people. This time the focus feels far more political than practical.

And that’s where this starts to feel less like concern over privacy and more like propaganda.

The current breach involves voter data. That makes it headline material. It creates a clear villain. It fuels an already heated political climate.

Meanwhile, breaches involving school systems, government databases or healthcare-related information tend to fade much faster from public discussion, even when the personal consequences may be far more severe.

The media plays a role in that too. Political conflict generates clicks and attention. Stories involving bureaucratic failures or cybersecurity weaknesses inside public systems rarely get the same sustained coverage.

But Albertans don’t suddenly become “at risk” only when a politically useful story emerges. They’ve been at risk for years from weak digital security across multiple institutions and levels of government.

If politicians and media outlets are going to use words like “dangerous” and “unprecedented,” then the standard should apply evenly across the board.

Otherwise, it begins to look like outrage is being measured less by the seriousness of the breach itself and more by whether the story can be used politically.

Albertans deserve consistency. They deserve facts before hysteria, investigations before conclusions and honest conversations about data security no matter who is responsible.

The opinions expressed by the author are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.