NID data leak: EC finds evidence against 5 institutions

The election commission (EC) in its preliminary investigation has found evidence that five institutions using NID services leaked information to third parties.

EC senior secretary Akhtar Ahmed disclosed this while speaking to newspersons after a meeting to exchange views with institutions receiving NID verification services at Nirbachan Bhaban on Tuesday.

The election commission provides the NID services and the data centre is also under control of the EC. The election commission has signed agreement with 182 government and non-government organisations, who avail the service for verifying the NID data.

The five accused are the Director General of Health Services, UCB Bank’s Upay, the Chittagong Port Authority, Department of Women Affairs and IBAS of the Finance Ministry.

Senior secretary Akhtar Ahmed told the media, “These institutions have been asked to show cause. An investigation is underway to determine whether this occurred due to negligence or was done intentionally. If anyone has done this on his or her own initiative, it is a punishable offence.”

He further said that they have found that those who were provided the scope of verifying the citizens’ information, they handed over the data to a third party without informing the EC. This is not warranted.

The senior secretary stated that they have been discussing bringing this under control and to improve the management system so that the organisations could collect the required amount of data from the NID server.