Folks who have been attending open houses about the Brunette interchange replacement have more information about the project – and about the people who are interested in the project.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure recently sent out an email update about some recent additions to the Brunette interchange project website, including new “present day” renderings and a traffic model report. The email went out to about 275 people, including local residents and politicians, and showed all of the individuals’ email addresses.
“I didn’t even look at the list, actually,” said New West resident Bill Radbourne. “I just thought, ‘What the heck is this?’ and opened it up and they all came scrolling down. I looked for my name, and of course it was there.”
Radbourne initially thought the addresses were from people who attended open houses on the project, but later learned they were from people who had completed a survey about the Brunette interchange. He’s surprised something like this would happen in the first place.
After getting the initial email from the ministry, Radbourne soon received an email trying to recall the previous message, but it also included the list of email addresses. He was concerned about privacy issues related to the distribution of people’s email addresses and received a subsequent email from the ministry.
“Please accept our apologies for the erroneous distribution on Dec. 13, 2016, where private email addresses were inadvertently displayed,” said the letter of apology. “This was an administrative error and attempts were immediately made to retrieve the email. The ministry of transportation and infrastructure values the privacy of public information, and measures have been taken to ensure this does not occur in the future.”
