The former manager of Saanich’s IT department who is at the centre of legal action from B.C.’s attorney general over accusations of improperly sharing municipal files is now working for the province’s elections agency.
The attorney general’s May 17 civil filing accuses Guy Gondor, Saanich’s IT manager until Feb. 17, 2022, of copying the files and sharing them with his son in connection to a neighbour dispute. The court petition calls for an order demanding the copied items – which contain hundreds of files with private information – be returned or destroyed.
An Elections BC spokesperson confirmed that Gondor is currently employed by the agency that oversees the administration of public votes in the province, and is serving as the executive director of information technology (IT).
The spokesperson said they’re aware of the civil lawsuit, but would not say when it first learned of the court proceedings.
The civil action claims Gondor copied 2,580 district files to his personal drive on two dates in December 2021 and January of last year. It adds that two DVDs were created in February 2022 with 2,192 files matching those copied in the months prior, and only Gondor’s username was determined to have copied the records onto the discs.
Saanich identified 301 copied files containing personal information, which the lawsuit said includes residential addresses, owner names, personal email addresses, phone numbers, personal views and opinions of third parties and internal employee ID numbers.
“Elections BC is committed to protecting personal information and places the highest priority on information security,” Andrew Watson, the agency’s senior director of communications, said in an email.
“We take all necessary steps to ensure the integrity of information and data that we hold, and extensive protections are in place to ensure that this remains so.”
On March 24, 2022, Gondor’s son Darian emailed Saanich’s manager of environmental services with complaints about activities on his neighbour’s property. Two documents attached in the email included a copy of an environmental services breach-of-covenant letter Saanich had sent to property owners living adjacent to Darian, and a field report, completed by the district’s engineering department, regarding a possible bylaw violation at the same neighbouring property.
The lawsuit claims the letter and report in Darian’s email were among the district records copied by Gondor and added neither the former IT manager nor his son had any personal involvement in the matters within those two records. The court filing notes no freedom-of-information requests were made for those files as it said there was no legal way for Gondor’s son to have access to the letter and report.
Saanich’s 2021 statement of financial information (SOFI) states Gondor earned $123,452 that year in his role as manager of IT service delivery.
As of Friday, June 9, the court file has not been updated with any new documents from the parties involved.
READ: Former Saanich IT manager accused of nabbing municipal files, sharing personal data