Group asks NBI to probe LTO’s IT service provider

MANILA, Philippines — A civic group has asked the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to probe the Land Transportation Office’s (LTO) IT service provider in its driver’s license (DL) system, over alleged violations involving national security.

In a letter addressed to NBI director Melvin Matibag on May 19, Flag Maharlika called on the agency’s Cybercrime Division to investigate possible violations of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 or Republic Act No. 10175.

This as the group cited an Ombudsman resolution issued in November 2022—recognizing an internal LTO Management Information Division report in 2020—which stated that German-based IT service provider Dermalog allegedly had access and control over the agency’s 5-year driver’s license inventory and printing application modules.

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The same report also warned that the company posed “a national security threat” as it could “print Philippine DL cards untraceable by the agency at any given time, and can even do so outside Philippine territory.”

Furthermore, the resolution stated that LTO personnel who needed to move pre-printed driver’s license card inventories between districts had to coordinate the request through a Dermalog employee based in Malaysia, proving that Dermalog has remote access to the system even outside Philippine borders.

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The group also pointed out that the Ombudsman resolution itself held that “Dermalog, in 2020, interfered in and controlled the LTO’s printing system of DL cards, and as such was considered by responsible technical officials of the LTO as a threat to national security” and concluded that the IT provider should be “blacklisted and barred from joining future biddings.”

“That recommendation, by reference to the public record, has been on file for five years without action,” Flag Maharlika said in its letter to Matibag.

With this, the group called on Matibag to direct the NBI’s Cybercrime Division to institute an investigation into possible violations of Sections 4(a)(1), 4(a)(3), and 4(a)(4) of RA 10175, and then eventually, refer the matter to the proper prosecutorial authority for the appropriate criminal action.

It also urged the NBI’s Counterintelligence Division to conduct a parallel national security assessment of the extent of Dermalog’s access to the LTO’s driver’s license modules.

The group also asked the NBI to coordinate the foregoing investigation and assessment with the Department of Information and Communications Technology, the National Security Council, and the Land Transportation Office, to ensure that protective and remedial measures may be considered in parallel with the investigation.

INQUIRER has requested a comment from Dermalog about the matter, but has yet to receive a response as of writing. /cb