Canada: Opposition in Nova Scotia demands accountability from hacked power provider

In Canada, opposition parties in Nova Scotia called on June 2, 2025, for executives from the public electricity provider Nova Scotia Power to appear before the Public Accounts legislative committee. In May 2025, cybercriminals stole the records of 280,000 of the company’s customers, which were later leaked on the dark web.

These records contained a range of personal data, including highly sensitive information. Nova Scotia Power CEO Peter Gregg acknowledged that about half of the stolen files included a social insurance number.

Following the cyberattack, the utility temporarily suspended billing and its online customer service. It also offered affected individuals a two-year subscription to a credit monitoring service. At the end of May 2025, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada announced it would launch an investigation into the incident.

“Many people are asking why social insurance numbers were kept in the first place,” said Liberal MLA Iain Rankin. He is seeking clarity on the failures that led to the theft of such sensitive data and believes the Nova Scotia government bears part of the responsibility.