Woman accuses City of Calgary of compromising her safety following privacy breach

A Calgary woman says the City of Calgary compromised her safety after it sent some of her personal information to a complete stranger.

A Calgary woman is accusing the city of compromising her safety after it sent some of her personal information to a complete stranger.

Kris Webber told Global News it all started when she challenged her property assessment at the start of the year. Webber felt the value assessed by the city far exceeded what her home was actually worth, so she sent in an appeal. The city’s tax department then sent her an email asking her to send more information, including photos of the inside and outside of her home.

Webber said she got all of the necessary information ready and hit “reply all” — not knowing one of the people on the email chain was not with the city, but just another resident.

“I got this very terse email from this gentleman saying, ‘I don’t know who you are. I don’t know why I’m included on this email,'” she said.

“My heart just stopped, and my stomach sunk.”

The unintended recipient went on to tell her to delete his email address and that “under the (Personal Information Protection Act ) I am sure the rules have been broken and someone should be fired.”

Webber said she understood none of her financial information had been compromised, but what had been leaked she said was even worse.

“Just the fact that he knows where I live now and he’s got the pictures of the inside of my house, the outside of my house,” she pointed out. “If he wanted to come over and do some malicious intent or something, he’s literally got an outline of what my house looks like.