We know Ottawa’s electronic spy agency has violated the privacy of Canadians on multiple occasions. Indeed, the highly secretive Communications Security Establishment maintains a central database of such transgressions dating back to 2007.

What we don’t know is how many such breaches have occurred. As reported by the Star’s Alex Boutilier, the organization refuses to reveal this number, citing “operational security concerns.” The CSE is evidently worried that disclosing the total might give Canada’s enemies insight into its “capacity to conduct operations” and “the extent of its capabilities.”

It’s far more likely that what actually troubles this agency is having Canadians see its capacity for misconduct and the extent of its abuses.

To assure people that the principle of public accountability is being respected it’s important for the CSE to level with Canadians and reveal how often it has violated their privacy.

There’s no doubt wrongdoing has taken place. That was revealed earlier this year when Parliament was told the electronic eavesdropping agency had inadvertently shared Canadians’ “metadata” with foreign allies.

This class of information can include the destination and duration of phone calls, emails, and text messages. To protect privacy, such material was supposed to be scrubbed of key details before being passed along to other members of the “Five Eyes” alliance — the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. But the CSE learned, in 2013, that a technical glitch had resulted in a leak of confidential data.

It informed government officials but kept the mistake hidden from the Canadian public for two years. This gives rise to an obvious question: how many other privacy violations might this agency be keeping secret?

As reported by Boutilier, documents tabled in Parliament last month show the CSE admitting to 13 privacy and information breaches in 2015, affecting at least 630 people. None of these cases were reported to Canada’s privacy commissioner on grounds that they posed “no significant risk” to anyone.

It’s hard to see how presenting a similar tally, dating back to 2007, would pose a serious security threat. It would, however, give Canadians some insight into how well their rights are being protected.

The Liberal government came to office promising a new level of openness and accountability. Responsibility for fulfilling that pledge now rests with Treasury Board President Scott Brison. And a good place for him to start would be to let Canadians know how often their privacy has been violated by a shadowy agency that refuses to fully answer even to this country’s information and privacy commissioner.