Ex‑CBSA employee data sharing

A former Canada Border Services Agency employee was found to have spent years pulling confidential immigration records for people tied to his side real-estate work. (ca.news.yahoo.com) A federal labour tribunal upheld the 2017 firing of Placide Kalisa in a decision issued in February 2026 and published online this month. Kalisa had worked as a senior program officer whose job included advising on whether Canada could safely remove inadmissible foreign nationals to certain countries. (ca.news.yahoo.com) The ruling says Kalisa carried out dozens of unauthorized searches of Canada Border Services Agency and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada databases between 2003 and his 2016 suspension. The tribunal accepted the agency’s case that he looked up files “for personal reasons,” including to help acquaintances and support his real-estate business. (ca.news.yahoo.com) One example in the decision involved a Rwandan visa applicant identified as A.K. After checking the person’s refusal record 32 times in two months, Kalisa wrote an invitation letter for the applicant and spouse; the decision says he knew A.K. was coming to Canada to buy a condominium and later signed a property-management contract with him. (ca.news.yahoo.com) The case lands as Canada’s privacy watchdog has been pressing federal agencies on how they control access to sensitive personal data. In a March 2026 special report on ArriveCAN contracting, Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne said departments must set and enforce security requirements that limit privacy and security risks when contractors or staff handle government information. (priv.gc.ca) The Canada Border Services Agency has faced repeated scrutiny over internal handling of personal information. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner previously found a CBSA contractor breach exposed licence-plate images from border crossings, and another report found the agency over-disclosed a former employee’s personal information in an access-to-information matter. (priv.gc.ca 1) (priv.gc.ca 2) CBC reported in December 2025 that the agency recorded 364 misconduct cases in the previous year and found 259 of them were substantiated. Earlier CBC reporting also documented dismissals and discipline for officers who interfered in immigration files or shared private CBSA information. (cbc.ca 1) (cbc.ca 2) Kalisa did not comment to Postmedia on the tribunal ruling and has said he plans legal action against both the agency and his former union, while alleging discrimination. The agency did not answer Postmedia’s questions before deadline about whether it has changed how it monitors employee database access since the misconduct was uncovered. (ca.news.yahoo.com) The tribunal decision leaves in place the dismissal and puts the focus back on a basic control inside government systems: who can open a file, why they opened it, and whether anyone notices when the answer is personal gain. (ca.news.yahoo.com)