KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 17 —Transparency Malaysia International (TI-M) has urged Election Commission (EC) to be transparent in its investigation of the recent MySPR data leak and said that the government has not taken the matter seriously.
“Media reports last week revealed that data from the voting portal MySPR was publicly on sale on the internet.
“It was also reported that the caretaker Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob had merely urged the Election Commission to probe the matter,” said TI-M president Muhammad Mohan in a statement released today.
He added that this is a recurring problem and a serious national issue that has been responded to with lackluster assurances of action and investigation by ministries and agencies that have been passing the buck from one to another.
Last Friday, online news portal Free Malaysia Today reported that more than 8,000 users allegedly sourced from the MySPR system which is available on sale for US$2000 (around RM9,300) at a well-known database marketplace.
The seller also claimed that they are in possession of the information of 22 million voters for the 15th General Election (GE15).
TI-M said that the data security of Malaysians has been seriously compromised and suspects that there have been corrupt activities that led to the recent data leakage from Election Commission’s MySPR database.
“Data security of Malaysians seems to have been seriously compromised from time to time and there seems to be a lack of sincere accountability and commitment to identify and plug the leaks.
“More importantly one suspect's there must have been corrupt activities which led to the leakage and all involved should be brought to justice for such criminal acts,” said Muhammad.
Earlier this year, a telecommunication and technology portal, Lowyat.net reported that there were alleged sales of personal data of more than 22 million Malaysians, as well as identification card verification snapshots of 800,000 individuals belonging to the NRD and Election Commission (EC) via online.
