Privacy commissioner orders shutdown of BCLC online gambling site until glitches can be fixed

Provincial privacy commissioner Elizabeth Denham has ordered the government’s online gambling website to remain shut down until the B.C. Lottery Corp. can find out what caused a computer glitch that allowed some gamblers to play other people’s money.

When PlayNow.com, a former gaming site, was relaunched with much fanfare on July 15 with new features, Social Development Minister Rich Coleman praised North America’s first government-run online casino.

Within hours, a privacy breach was identified and the entire website was taken down.

A BCLC official originally blamed overloaded computers.

It later came out that BCLC’s overwhelmed servers had mistakenly created a “data crossover” that allowed some players’ accounts to be switched into another gambler’s account while they were playing.

Twelve people had their personal information, such as bank accounts, viewed by strangers. Accounts belonging to more than 100 people were compromised in the few hours the site was running on July 15.

BCLC president Mike Graydon told The Province last week he expected the website to be remediated and running by the end of last week, but that plan was too optimistic.

“BCLC will not reactivate the website until an independent third-party review of the system is completed,” said a Tuesday press release issued by the Denham’s office.

“This expert third-party security review is currently under way.”

Shane Simpson, New Democrats’ gaming critic, said Denham’s investigation shows that she is taking the security breach more seriously than the government.

“I think it says the privacy commissioner isn’t prepared to simply trust the Lottery Corp. to get this thing up and running. She wants to be directly satisfied that they are doing the things she wants, including this third-party validation,” Simpson told The Province on Tuesday.

“The minister [Coleman] has been less than forthright with British Columbians about what actually occurred here.”

Simpson said a computer expert familiar with the file claims that when large, complex websites like PlayNow.com are found to have a major problem, “it’s really hard to get them back up.

“This could take months,” said Simpson, who noted the lost revenue for government coffers in the meantime could be substantial.

The government has said it expected to cash in big, with $40 million in online gambling revenues a year, or about $100,000 a day.

Last week, Graydon said that BCLC has no complaints about the software created for the new games by British online gambling firm Open Bet.

Simpson said the whole mess shows the government should not have gambling promotion and enforcement under the same ministry, and he said he’s writing the premier to demand they be split up.

“I will be asking the premier to do what Minister Coleman isn’t prepared to support, which is to separate [the government’s Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch] from the Lottery Corp.,” he said.

“I’m suggesting [enforcement] should probably go to the solicitor-general’s ministry. They need to be in separate ministries.

“The Lottery Corp. is in promotion and money-making as its primary business. Policy enforcement and oversight need to be at arm’s length from that, and that doesn’t seem to be working under one ministry,” said Simpson.

An attempt to reach Coleman for comment was unsuccessful.

aivens@theprovince.com