While fraudster has already been in charge of the Quebec digital identity project, the opposition parties are concerned about the lack of security checks for delicate government projects. Even the new Cybersecurity minister admits that it would be “preferable” to have security authorizations.
“It’s delusional,” said Haroun Bouazzi, United deputy, in an incisive manner.
Between 2019 and the end of July 2020, the Treasury Board trusted a fraudster, now imprisoned in the United States, to develop its digital identity project. When he was finally dismissed, the computer scientist Yan Ouellet left with his secrets, mining the deployment of the application intended to allow Quebecers to do all their transactions with the State on their phone.
At the time, Ouellet had been on the radar of the financial market authority since 2017, for activities related to Plexcoin, a cryptocurrency with which he was suspected of having gave up around 15,000 investors.
“The Minister of Cybersecurity, who decides on the security of the data of Quebecers, takes external consultants on which clearly no security survey has been made,” said Bouazzi.
The PQ leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, says that the government has made an “amateur” gesture which can “have very serious consequences”.
“What sensitive data has this person had access and what impact on state security?” he wonders.
The interim leader of the Liberal Party, Marc Tanguay, is also concerned about the information that Yan Ouellet had access while he worked under the leader of the former digital minister, Eric Caire.
“This is information not only confidential, but highly sensitive. Digital identity. And there, there was a person who defrauded, who is in prison, who was the Grand Manitou. It’s appalling! ” he said.
-«Expertise unique»
The Ministry of Cybersecurity and Digital confirmed by email that Yan Ouellet had a “unique expertise in the complexity of advanced technologies” which enabled him to play “a role in the development and demonstration of proof of concept” of digital identity.
Cybersecurity expert and Caquist deputy for Fabre, Alice Abou-Khalil, also said that it would be “preferable” to establish security authorizations to work on thorny technological projects from the government.
With its cellular
For his part, the new Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital, Gilles Bélanger, first tried to minimize the role of Yan Ouellet in the digital identity project. According to him, the report surprised him “because it still dates a little”.
He pleaded that Yan Ouellet had worked on proof of concept in order to set up the business file, and that anyone could do it with his cell phone.
It was ultimately the leader of the government, Simon Jolin-Barrette, who had to intervene during the question period, in order to ensure that the government was taking this case “seriously”, that the consultant was no longer in the employment of the State.
In a press scrum, the minister finally admitted that it would be better to have security authorizations.
“There is a verification that must be made. And it is the administrative to verify that it is the right people who are in the right place, ”he said.
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