5 institutions leaked information from NID system: EC

The Election Commission (EC) has revealed that sensitive information from the National Identity Card (NID) system has been leaked by five institutions that utilise its services.
These institutions are: the Directorate General of Health Services, UCB Bank's Upay, the Chittagong Port Authority, the Department of Women Affairs, and the finance ministry's iBAS.
EC Secretary Akhtar Ahmed on Monday confirmed that preliminary investigations provided enough evidence of the breach.
Speaking to the media after a meeting with organisations that use NID verification services at the Election Building in Agargaon, he stated that show-cause notices have been issued to the institutions concerned.
"The ongoing investigation aims to determine whether these breaches were due to negligence at the institutional level or deliberate actions. If they were caused by individual actions, it would be considered a criminal offense," he explained. Akhtar also pointed out that 182 organisations are currently utilising services provided by the National Identity Registration Division, emphasising that data usage should be restricted to necessary purposes.
Additionally, he noted that some organisations are outsourcing services to other entities, which violates their agreements.
A review will be carried out to determine if any institutions are accessing more data than required.
This follows a report by TechCrunch on July 6, 2023, which revealed a breach of Bangladeshi citizens' personal information from a government website.
The report disclosed that personal data, including full names, phone numbers, email addresses, and NID numbers, had been exposed online.
In response, the NID division said that EC's NID server was secure and denied any breach of its data.
The division also stated if any issues were found, relevant contracts would be terminated.

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