National Defence Committee on Jan. 31st, 2024

[Robert Olmsted]

At this point, since we do not have a list of who the impacted individuals were, we have not been able to provide support to those individuals. We are committed, once we finish the evaluation, to providing that support at our expense. About 500,000 folks have been moved over the last 25 years by us, and that number is way higher than the number of those who will actually have been impacted. We think a fraction of those people could have been impacted by this.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay. So a commitment has been negotiated between you and the government that, no matter how long it takes to provide that list, the government will be compensated out of what has already been paid to your company.

[Robert Olmsted]

We have committed to supporting the individuals who we identify have been impacted. We have made that commitment to all of our clients, not just the government.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

That wasn't very clear. Is that a yes or a no in terms of that payment?

[Robert Olmsted]

Yes, we will support anyone who was impacted.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

You will support anyone who has been impacted, but are you going to pay back the money the public service has covered for services to help those families and so on who had to have information covered?

[Robert Olmsted]

We will if they are on the list of impacted individuals.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay.

Is that my time?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have eight seconds, so I think that's your time.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

That's my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Bezan, go ahead for five minutes.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our witness for being with us.

For clarification's sake, does Sirva provide any moving services to the U.S. armed forces at any of the branches?

[Robert Olmsted]

I don't think I am at liberty to share information about our other clients, but it would be public information if we're taking part. I would be remiss if I said that we weren't taking part at an agent level for the moves, because it's the largest mover in the world.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Sir, I think the question is germane based upon the data breach that happened with the Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP and other public servants in Canada. I'm concerned if that also happened to U.S. service members and what steps are being taken. There might be a chance to replicate here in Canada what the U.S. is doing to ensure the safety of information for our service members.

[Robert Olmsted]

I would need to get back to the committee on that.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Okay, please, if you could do that, we would appreciate that very much.

Is the system that was breached the service system or is it the system that you guys acquired when you took over BGRS?

[Robert Olmsted]

It was the full system, both sides of the organization.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

The attack happened on which side of the system, the Sirva or the BGRS database?

[Robert Olmsted]

It's all one system at this point. It's all connected.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

For clarification, when you found out you were getting hacked on the 28th and you shut down the system on the 29th...or was the system still open, but you guys tried to take it off-line? Walk me quickly through exactly how you thought you stopped them from hacking in, yet data was still leaking from September 29 right through until October 19.

[Robert Olmsted]

The data they copied all happened during the night of the 28th and the 29th. We shut the bad actor out of the system in the middle of that process. At the same time—

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

You knew on the 29th that you had been hacked, yet on October 3, you just told verbally the Canadian Armed Forces, and then again by email on October 4, that you were off-line. You didn't disclose that you had been hacked.

[Robert Olmsted]

We disclosed that the bad actor had encrypted our system.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Okay, but—

[Robert Olmsted]

They came in and encrypted the system. At the same time, they were copying some files.