The Ministry of Immigration in the province of Saskatchewan has dismissed some of its employees after they gained unauthorized access to files belonging to immigration applicants.

The provincial authorities did not specify the number of employees who lost their jobs due to this case.

This discovery comes after a preliminary investigation showed that a former employee had accessed the files of 40 immigration applicants to the province as part of an alleged illegal immigration scheme. This employee resigned from his position on August 8, 2022.

However, the authorities of this province located in Western Canada indicate that the recent dismissals of some employees may not be related to this case.

These recent cases, like the previous one, have been referred to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Saskatchewan and to the Ministry of Justice of the provincial government for investigation.

Additionally, another privacy breach occurred last March according to the Ministry of Immigration. Immigration applicants were able to see a report containing information related to 8,049 other immigration applicants.

"An immigration candidate informed the ministry that he was able to see the names of other candidates as well as their Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program (SINP) identification number, the program category under which they registered, their type of application, their application status, the date of their application, the date they submitted their application, and the expiry date of their work permit," said the Ministry of Immigration in Saskatchewan in a press release.

"This information was visible to other clients who were not authorized to view the report. There were no links leading to client accounts or any other identifying information," the ministry added.

The ministry said it took "immediate measures" to resolve the issue. The affected immigration applicants and the Privacy Commissioner were notified of the incident.

Saskatchewan is one of the three Prairie provinces and is the sixth largest of Canada’s ten provinces by population, with about 1.21 million residents according to Statistics Canada’s estimates for the first quarter of 2023.