Samples of the leaked information suggest it was at one point in the hands of a company linked to an organizer who helped would-be PC candidates recruit members

TORONTO — A former employee of Ontario’s 407 private freeway quit suddenly Wednesday as a Progressive Conservative candidate in next month’s election, barely an hour after the highway confirmed that information on 60,000 customers had been leaked through an “internal theft.”

Simmer Sandhu, the candidate for Brampton East, said in an online statement that he had recently been made aware of anonymous allegations against him “pertaining to both my work life and my nomination campaign.”

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“These allegations are totally baseless. I absolutely deny them,” he said on both Twitter and Facebook. “I will vigorously defend myself and reputation and I am confident I will be cleared.”

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But he said it would be impossible to continue as a candidate while doing so and that the election is too important “to get caught up in the issues surrounding any one person.”

A cached version of his election website, which had been shut down by early Wednesday evening, says Sandhu has worked at 407 ETR the last nine years, most recently as a litigation analyst in the collections department. A company spokesman said he left the job this February.

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The Conservatives had little to say about the abrupt departure.

“Simmer Sandhu provided his resignation to the party and the party accepted it,” Melissa Lantsman, a spokeswoman for PC Leader Doug Ford, said Wednesday night.

She later revealed his replacement as candidate will be small businessman Sudeep Verma. The Tories didn’t have much time to act, with the deadline for nominating candidates closing at 2 p.m. Thursday.

The announcement came at a particularly inauspicious moment for the Tories, as Ford was holding a rally in neighbouring Mississauga Wednesday evening, partly to highlight candidates in the region.

The 407’s operator said earlier Wednesday it is notifying 60,000 of its customers that information about the motorists was divulged through an “internal theft” of names, addresses and phone numbers.

Local police and federal and provincial privacy agencies have also been notified of the breach, which the firm first learned about last week, said Kevin Sack, a spokesman for the 407 ETR Concession Company.

Sack, vice president of marketing and communications, said he could not speculate on how the information might have been used.

But there is some separate evidence it could have been employed to help recruit Conservative party members in internal campaigns.

The data did not include financial information such as credit cards or personal details like car licence numbers and customers’ trip history on the highway, Sack stressed in a statement. And he said there does not appear to have been any external attack of the computer system.

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The risk of the information being used for identity theft or other financial harm is slim, but the 407 owners will offer free credit monitoring and identity-theft protection for a year to affected customers, they said.

“The company is taking this matter very seriously as the privacy and protection of our customers’ information is of the utmost importance,” said the statement. “We sincerely apologize for this incident and we will continue to do everything possible to ensure full resolution of this matter.

The National Post has seen what appears to be some of the purloined information, which suggests it was at one point in the hands of a company called D-Media. The name appears in the properties of the Excel file under the heading “last saved by.”

D-Media is linked to Snover Dhillon, an organizer who helped several would-be Progressive Conservative candidates recruit members as part of their drive to win PC nominations. Signing up new members can be critical to getting enough support to win a candidacy, but many of the Tory races over the last 19 months ended in controversy and dispute, sometimes with allegations of membership fraud. Several were overturned before and after Doug Ford won the party’s leadership.

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Dhillon said in a brief interview Wednesday he knew nothing about the 407 data theft. Asked if he or his company might have used the information, Dhillon said he didn’t remember.

“When we do the campaigns, in the nominations, sometimes people, candidates, give the data, but I don’t know where it came from,” he said. “We don’t know where they got it from.”

Sack said in the statement that 407 became aware of the theft on May 10, though it appears to have occurred sometime in the last 12 months.

“407 ETR is directly contacting approximately 60,000 customers by mail to advise that their account name, mailing address, and in some instances their phone number were removed from 407 ETR’s office,” he said.

When we do the campaigns, in the nominations, sometimes people, candidates, give the data, but I don’t know where it came from

Sack said he was unable to talk about the fate of any 407 staff members who were responsible for the theft.

“Although we are unable to publicly comment on employee issues, the matter has been forwarded to appropriate authorities.”

The company promptly notified the federal privacy commissioner about the breach, said Tobi Cohen, a spokesperson for the agency, which has not yet opened a formal investigation.

“We are in communication with the organization to better understand what occurred and what it is doing to mitigate the situation,” Cohen said.

The 407 theft comes as police in the Peel region investigate the leak of confidential arrest information by an employee of another police department, which was then used to discredit a potential Conservative candidate in Brampton.

That candidate was disqualified by the party shortly before the nomination battle last month.

(Story updated at 8:24 with 407 saying Sandhu was no longer an employee, naming his successor in Brampton East.)