Elections Canada has said that there were not any significant cybersecurity incidents during last year’s federal election.
The agency formed a unit that was designed to monitor social media to find disinformation about when and where to cast ballots. The unit was also tasked with finding fake social media accounts that were posing as Elections Canada.
The chief electoral officer of the agency, Stephane Perrault, said that the unit flagged 28 instances of impersonation or misinformation that could have impacted Canadians’ ability to vote.
Of the 28 instances, 13 were removed by the platforms. Several of the accounts that were reported turned out to be inactive.
Interestingly, the federal government is concerned about the risk of voter coercion and election interference through popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. The concerns were recently written down in a briefing note sent to the President of the Privy Council, Dominic LeBlanc.
Elections Canada says that it will continue to work with platforms to remove misinformation regarding the agency.
Source: The Canadian Press
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