Halifax military police investigate possible intelligence breach

The discovery of more than a thousand secret documents in a Defence Department network drive that belonged to a Halifax web designer is not "nefarious" and didn't compromise sensitiveinformation, according to Rear Admiral John Newton.

On Sept. 1, 2015, Halifax dockyardinformation security officers reported to military police that 1,066 secretdocuments dated between 2004 and 2009were found in the web designer's personal network drive during a routine security scan.

Two weeks later, military police filed a search warrant for two floors at a building located at Halifax's navy dockyard.

Web designerwas 'without malice'

Newton, commander of maritime forces in Atlantic Canada,says no higher level of investigation is required in this case because it's simply "the mishandling of information without malice."

"We've looked at the human elements of the issue and the work of the person involved. It's a matter of imprudence while handling material but nothing more nefarious than that," Newton said.

"This is a matter between the employer and the civilian implicated and those processes are still ongoing. Nobody has come to me to talk about charges."

Newton saidthe scan that discovered the files was made a routine because of former sub.-lieutenant. JeffreyDelisle, a navy intelligence officer whoin 2013was sentenced to 20 years in prison for copying secret computer files atHMCSTrinity and selling them to Russia between 2007 and 2012.

Web designer also worked at HMCS Trinity

As part of the search warrant, police seized six hard drives, a laptop, USB memory sticks, CDs, DVDs, and floppy disk drives from a Halifax navy dockyard building.

They were looking for 1,086 secret documents and 11 confidential documents dated between 2004 and 2009, the warrant said.

The search warrant alleges that the accused improperly used a computer belonging to the Defence Department, the Defence Wide Area Network (DWAN) and the Consolidated Secret Network Infrastructure (CSNI).

• TIMELINE |JeffreyDelisle: Naval officer turned spy

"This is a security violation within the Security Information Act Section 3 (1)(d)," the warrant said. Theweb designershould have built the project on the DWAN first and then transferred his web page files to the CSNI to add top secret files after, the document said.

After the scan, the information security officers confirmed thatthe web designerworked at HMCS Trinity during the period the documents were alleged to have been improperly stored.

HMCS Trinity is the centre of the navy's information gathering efforts, where data from military and civilian agencies, including police and border services, is accumulated.