EC rebuked over leak of ID card numbers of 23,000+ Senate candidates
Election Commission ordered to immediately hide the numbers, as PDPC accuses it of violating personal data protection law
A strict warning was issued after the Election Commission (EC) accidentally released the national ID numbers of some 23,000 senatorial election candidates who had passed the district-level election.
The Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC)’s Eagle Eye Centre said in a Facebook post on Thursday that the EC Office had violated the personal data protection law by publicly disclosing the ID card numbers of 23,645 candidates.
The centre said it has warned the EC Office to immediately conceal the numbers and explain the reason behind the leak.
The PDPC Office comes under the Digital Economy and Society (DES) Ministry and is in charge of enforcing the PDPC Act to protect sensitive personal data.
The centre said it learned of the leak through complaints from social networkers and alerted the EC Office to immediately conceal the numbers. It also urged social media users to not share the leaked numbers.
Separately, candidates Kengkart Kup-akkarapinyo and Wanna Horkanya submitted a petition to EC chairman Ittiporn Boonpracong on Wednesday demanding a transparent investigation into the leak of 23,645 candidates’ ID numbers.
Kengkart said that after submitting the petition, he and Wanna found that the leak of ID card numbers happened when the names of the 23,645 candidates were announced via groups on the Line app.
Wanna said the EC Office released Microsoft Excel files for candidates to check and believes they were shared by some people. He also fears that the leaked ID card data may be used in scams.
The centre added that it has been monitoring 26,301 government agencies from November to May this year and has found that the accidental leak of personal data by agencies had dropped from 31.40% to 1.21%.
