A local legal firm has filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Canada Life for a data breach identified last month.

Bob Buckingham Law has filed the lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The incident is reported to have affected approximately 70,000 people across the country, including some in this province.

It came to light locally through questions in the House of Assembly last week. At the time, Finance Minister Craig Pardy indicated that affected provincial government employees had been notified.

Buckingham says the incident occurred last month.

He says the hacker accessed emails, names, dates of birth, gender, mailing addresses, earnings information, insurance plan details….all sorts of things of that nature.

Stephen Barnes of Bob Buckingham Law says the case is about accountability, and “organizations that collect and store sensitive personal information must take appropriate steps to protect that information.”