CRA accounts hacked after 28,000 social insurance numbers stolen in data breach – CBC

Imposters claimed bogus returns through H&R Block offices in Alberta

Apr 15, 2025

Nurse Leslie Warner will never forget being taken to her local RCMP detachment in Fernie, B.C., in 2022 and charged in a social security fraud operating out of Alberta.

She says she was fingerprinted and had her mug shot taken.

“I was like: ‘Oh my God, this is my identity theft,'” Warner recalls telling police. “I did not do this.”

The fraud charges were dropped soon after she explained that an imposter had been using her identity since 2020, when someone hacked into her Canada Revenue Agency account and filed a bogus return in Alberta that stated tax preparation company H&R Block was her new “authorized representative.”

But Warner had never authorized H&R Block to file her taxes.

Warner said she has been trying for years to understand how her identity — and at times her life — came to be hijacked. She is also still “nervous” about her CRA account being hacked again.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/interior-health-data-breach-canada-revenue-agency-accounts-hacked-1.7507321