As Filipino voters panicked over the news that a group of hackers had leaked their information online, Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Andy Bautista downplayed the leak, pointing out that the information made available by the site is already public information.
READ: Hackers leak data of 70 million Filipino voters
In an ANC News Now interview, Bautista said, “In respect of this website, it is now out there. The information, as I said — name, address, date of birth, as much as possible they should not be sent out. But also, this kind of information is publicly available in other government agencies.”
Bautista went on to claim that there “was no fingerprint information that was taken” but he admitted that “there are information taken in respect of addresses.” He also admitted that details from “passports of certain overseas Filipino voters” were also leaked.
He added, “Now I’m not trying to make excuses. The fact is our website was hacked, and that’s why we’re trying to find ways to minimize the damage.”
“Bautista likewise highlighted the fact that the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) operatives arrested a 23-year-old man who was tagged as the Comelec website hacker,” reports ABS-CBNnews.com.
“The good news is we were able to arrest one of the hackers. In fact we met with him this morning, you saw him at the NBI. His computers, other paraphernalia were retrieved. At the moment, the NBI is continuing its forensic investigation in respect of the documents that are in the computer. There are two other hackers that the NBI is also looking for,” Baustista said.
Meanwhile, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez meanwhile urged the public not to use the website containing leaked voter info, as this could be a phishing website. He explained, “It can be used by the hackers to steal your information and thus expose you even further to the dangers of identity theft. We also cannot rule out at this stage that this may be an attempt by the hackers to monetize the data they claim to have.”
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