EC suspects flouting rules in data storage leads to leak

An agency has stored personal information of citizens flouting rules, resulting in data leak due to weakness of its website, said the election commission.

The election commission, however, has not mentioned the name of the agency.  

Officials of NID registration wing of the election commission made the claim at a press conference at the Nirbachan Bhaban (Election Building) in the capital on Sunday afternoon.

A total of 171 agencies use information of citizens' National Identity (NID) stored at the election commission.

The agencies include birth and death registration of the local government and registrar general office.

The US online media platform, TechCrunch, in a report on Thursday said personal information of millions of citizens has been leaked through a website of a government agency in Bangladesh. The information includes their names, phone numbers, email address and NID numbers.

NID director general AKM Humayun Kabir said the information of the citizens has been leaked, not from the server of the election commission (EC).

He said, "We provide NID services to 171 agencies. As per agreement they can work. According to the information we have on our server, neither any input from outside nor any threat has been recorded. So the information are being talked about, we strongly believe that it did not leak from our server."

He further said it is being scrutinised as to how much the agencies that are receiving services from them are cautious about the security. If deviation by any agency is found, their service will be halted. If the agreement is violated, it will be cancelled.

NID wing system manager Md Ashraf Hossain said there is an agreement with the birth and registration department.

At the press conference, IDEA-2 project IT director squadron leader Saad Wazed Tanvir said they provide data to some 171 agencies through VPN (virtual private network). It requires NID number and date of birth to take information from the EC server. The information is provided only after verifying date of birth against NID number. So there is no scope seeking a bulk amount of data.

Saad Wazed Tanvir further said the election commission has come to know about the vulnerability of an agency.