House asked to probe alleged breach of PNP data
An illustration shows a scammer in hoodie working on a computer. (Image by Dannie Agacer)
MANILA, Philippines — A resolution asking a panel to investigate the alleged data breach that reportedly affected the Philippine National Police (PNP) and other law enforcement agencies has been filed at the House of Representatives.
Alliance of Concerned Teachers party-list representative France Castro said on Wednesday she filed House Resolution No. 931 urging the House committee on information and communications technology to look into the issue.
Aside from PNP, data breach is believed to have affected the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), and Civil Service Commission (CSC).
However, several agencies and officials refuted this account.
Police and Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Ivan Uy said data was merely exposed to the public and leaked from the system.
Article continues after this advertisementThis means, security measures were not hacked.
Article continues after this advertisementREAD: It was a data leak, not a breach or a hack – PNP
READ: PNP: ‘No hacking incident, intrusion or breach’ in its database
Nevertheless, Castro said the incident still merits a probe.
“Even though these agencies denied that there were data breached or leaks in their system, it is still important for Congress to probe this issue because it involves national security and the privacy of our citizens,” the lawmaker said.
The resolution cited the report made by cybersecurity research company vpnMentor.
The firm stated 1.279 million records of the PNP, NBI, and BIR were exposed.
READ: Over 1M records from NBI, PNP, other agencies leaked in massive data breach
READ: IT experts’ group urges government to strengthen data protection after PNP breach
For their part, BIR and CSC maintained their data were not part of the items supposedly leaked to the public.
On the other hand, National Privacy Commission (NPC) agreed with vpnMentor’s observations that data was not breached.
The commission was convinced what happened was that pieces of information were left unprotected instead.
READ: No evidence yet of gov’t data leak – NPC
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