Home Ministry investigating data leak claims

PUTRAJAYA: The Home Ministry is conducting a thorough investigation into claims that millions of Malaysian’s personal data are being sold at USD10,000 (RM43,870) on a local database forum.

Its Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin said so far there was no solid proof that the data were obtained from the National Registration Department (NRD)’s database.

“Investigation is being conducted, people can claim that they obtained the data from NRD (but) we have a mechanism that proves it is not from the department,” he said at a press conference at the ministry’s Hari Raya Aidilfitri celebration at Putrajaya International Convention Centre today.

Hamzah was commenting on claims that NRD’s data containing personal data of over 22 million Malaysians were being sold on a database forum.

“For instance, we managed to prove that the last data leak was not from NRD but it was from several other agencies,” he said.

Hamzah said there was a need for NRD to revise their standard operating procedure on the need to reveal the information to a third-party.