More than 200 people from the Parksville Qualicum Beach area donated in excess of $22,000 to convoy protests and blockades through the crowdfunding website GiveSendGo, an analysis of hacked data from the website reveals.
Earlier this week, GiveSendGo was hacked after it gained widespread use in collecting funds for truckers blocking downtown Ottawa and Canada-U.S. borders across the country.
The person or persons who illegally hacked the website posted the data of people that donated to the trucker convoy cause. The data included email addresses, names, postal codes, IP addresses, personalized messages to the truckers and amounts donated. No credit card information was leaked and no money was stolen, the site confirmed. After the hack, GiveSendGo said its security team immediately shut down the site to prevent further damage.
Truckers and their supporters turned to GiveSendGo after GoFundMe announced it would not forward money raised through its website to the truckers because the protests violated its rules on violence and harassment. More than 120,000 donors contributed approximately $10 million before the GoFundMe page was shut down and donors were reimbursed.
Before GiveSendGo’s website was hacked, more than 36,000 people who donated, or 36 per cent, were from Canada, while 56 per cent came from the U.S. Two per cent came from the United Kingdom and the remaining three per cent came from more than 100 other countries.
There were more than 92,000 listed donations in total.
READ MORE: Blockade ends at Alberta-U.S. border crossing after more than two weeks
The data shows that Canadians donated the largest amount of money at $5.4 million (CAD), while residents in the U.S. donated $4.5 million.
By looking at the postal codes attached to individual donations, Black Press Media found approximately 220 PQB residents donated approximately $22,000 to the cause. That figure represents only those listed in the V9P, V9K and V0R postal code areas.
The highest listed donation was $1,000, with a note saying “with love to all the truckers and GiveSendGo for making this possible.”
People who made a donation were not obligated to provide their real name, email address or postal code. Some of the information could be fake or submitted under an alias.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, on Monday, Feb. 14, invoked the national Emergencies Act to bring to an end the anti-government blockades he describes as illegal and not about peaceful protest.
– with files from Black Press, CP