The City of Hamilton is apologizing, again, for yet another privacy breach.
The City informed Andrew Selman that his personal information was disclosed by “our staff” to “three Hamiltonians.” Selman publicly shared the letter.
“I am writing you that on January 9, 2025, we became aware of a breach of privacy involving your personal information,” reads the letter signed by Hamilton’s new Corporate Privacy Officer Ayo Adesomoju.
“Specifically, your name, home address, and telephone number were erroneously included in an email sent to three Hamiltonians.”
The City issued the notice late on Friday, January 17, 2025. The City Manager’s Office was closed for the weekend before TPR could ask questions.
One of the unanswered questions is what circumstances would exist for the City to send personal information to “three Hamiltonians,” and who these “three Hamiltonians” are.
The City did not disclose any details of the leak to Selman.
Selman Disliked by City Hall Because He Holds Them to Account
Selman has emerged as a community voice in Ward 3 due to his advocacy regarding the negative impacts of non-complaint encampments at Gage Park.
He frequently delegates at council meetings and posts videos to YouTube.
This is the latest serious privacy breach and the second time in less than a year that the personal information of delegates was released by the City.
2022 Election Breach
During the 2022 municipal election, the City Clerk’s Office committed the largest-ever municipal election privacy breach, revealing the identities and personal emails of hundreds of people who registered to vote by mail.
Then City Manager Janette Smith and City Clerk Andrea Holland eventually issued an unsigned statement of regret.
The City’s internal auditor briefly reviewed the incident and excused the incident writing, “While the privacy breach is regrettable … ultimately, how people were voting was not exposed in this privacy breach.”
“That being said, there is room from a process improvement perspective to better manage privacy risks in the future,” the City auditor wrote.
No staff were held responsible for the breach, and no corrective actions were taken.
Instead, the City promised to conduct staff training.
2024 City Clerks Delegates Privacy Breach
Exactly one year before the latest breach, Hamilton’s City Clerk published the home addresses and phone numbers of 36 people who delegated to City Council.
Following this failure, the City Clerks investigated themselves and determined the breach was insignificant. City Council decided to take no action
2024 Cybersecurity Failure
In late February 2024, the City of Hamilton’s failure to implement basic procedures and protections resulted in the worst cybersecurity failure yet experienced by a Canadian municipality.
Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner’s investigation is ongoing. The IPC recently forced the City of Hamilton to acknowledge some of the resulting privacy breaches.
City Council has announced no actions to address ongoing privacy breaches.
There are no known incidents amongst Ontario’s 443 other municipalities of repeated breaches of delegate information.
Production Details
v. 1.0.0
Published: January 18, 2025
Last updated: January 18, 2025
Author: Joey Coleman
Update Record
v. 1.0.0 original version
Thanks for helping make this breach publicly know. It’s a terrible feeling to have this personally happen after speaking out.
This won’t quiet my voice.
Thank you for reporting this latest privacy breach and putting it in context with previous ones.
If I’m not mistaken, I saw a 56 million dollar price tag attached to the City’s privacy breach in 2024. The taxpayers are on the hook for that.
They investigated themselves, found it insignificant and took no action. Why have a Privacy Policy at all?
This is a rogue Council among 443 Minicipalities that easily disregards its citizens, what they have to say the taxes they levy and how they shamlessly squander it.
There ought to be a law against that.
Allowing the City staff to investigate itself is ludicrous. There needs to be accountability at City Hall. Hamilton has the worst City Council and staff in the entire province.
Perhaps there needs to be an independent investigation.
But then the names etc. of those investigators would probably be erroneously leaked to nefarious groups by city staff.
I only have one thing to say “I can’t wait for October 2026”.
Does the city not have a IT department? WTF. If yes, what are they getting paid for?!