Last January, the mayor of Saanich admitted he lied about an extramarital affair, denied rumours of cronyism, accused police of harassing him, and then claimed his computer had been bugged and that a program called Spectre 360 was monitoring his digital activity.

Richard Atwell said all of that in one very brief press conference. He then stated he would not take questions.

The outlandish nature of his claims combined with that refusal to provide details created a vacuum of information that was largely filled with ridicule.

Today (March 30), the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C. released a report that largely vindicates the most dramatic of Atwell’s claims that concerned his digital surveillance.

“My staff reviewed the information that was recorded by Spector 360 during a site visit to the District,” begins the document by commissioner Elizabeth Denham. “They observed that the software had been configured to record the activities of District employees, including recording and retaining screenshots of computer activity at 30 second intervals and every keystroke taken on a workstation’s keyboard, and retaining copies of every email sent or received.

“This configuration collected all personal information that a user entered into their workstation, including images of personal internet use, such as internet banking, private passwords, or medical laboratory results, as well as the personal information of any constituents who contacted the Mayor, the District Directors, or the executive assistants to the Mayor and Councillors.”

The report not only acknowledges the mayor was spied on but goes on to note Saanich district staff had publicly misrepresented its reasons for installing the software.

“The District stated in a January 14, 2015 media release, Spector 360 was purchased in response to one of the recommendations in the IT Audit,” it explains. “My staff reviewed the IT audit report and it did not make any specific recommendation that could be interpreted to recommend the purchase and installation of employee-monitoring software.

Denham suggests in the report that any sort of program that can record an employee’s activity so closely be removed from district computers.

“The Commissioner’s recommendations in this report include that the District disable various employee monitoring software functions such as keystroke logging, screenshot recording, program activity logging, email recording, and user logon functions and that the District destroy all personal information collected by the monitoring software from these functions,” it states.

According to the privacy commissioner, the decision to install Spectre 360 on the computers of the mayor and other officials was made by the director of corporate services. The report does not name that individual. However, the Saanich News previously reported documents obtained through freedom of information legislation reveal it was Laura Ciarniello who authorized the software’s installation on December 2.

“The Director of Corporate Services opted to secure the workstations used by employees and officers of the District who are deemed to be 'high-profile' and therefore likely targets for an IT security breach,” the privacy commissioner’s report states.

“The Director of Corporate Services stated that this strategy was adopted so that the District Directors would be able to reassure the Mayor that steps had been taken to secure the District’s IT infrastructure.”

Today’s report does not address claims regarding the Saanich police department’s alleged harassment of Atwell.

The mayor has scheduled a press conference for later this morning where he is expected to deliver his response to the release of the commissioner’s report.