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The lab-testing company that was targeted in a cyberattack wants to block B.C.’s information and privacy commissioner from acquiring a report on the incident prepared for the firm.

LifeLabs has filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court seeking to prevent the commissioners from getting the report written by CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm, after the October cyberattack. The petition says the report is protected by solicitor-client privilege and litigation privilege, and was created by the cybersecurity firm for and under the direction of lawyers for LifeLabs.

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“Its purpose is to enable counsel to provide informed legal advice to LifeLabs, including in respect of civil litigation and the very investigation the commissioner is now undertaking,” says the petition. “Because the CrowdStrike report is privileged, the commissioner cannot compel its production.”

There have been at least five class-action lawsuits and a separate civil claim launched against LifeLabs since the company discovered that there had been an unauthorized access to its computer system that stored information relating to up to 15 million of its customers, most of them in B.C. and Ontario. Names, addresses, health-care numbers and in some cases lab reports of the customers may have been accessed during the cyberattack. LifeLabs provides general medical diagnostic and specialty lab-testing services.