Two former employees of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) have been identified and subsequently booked for ‘stealing sensitive records and data’.
The authority has nominated a former deputy chairman and a deputy director in the first information report (FIR). The complaint was lodged by NADRA HQ Chief of Staff Col (r) Tahir Maqsood Khan.
The FIR registered at the Secretariat Police Station states that the former deputy chairman stole sensitive information from NADRA records and that he was dismissed from the service a few months back. He also carried along some belongings of the authority, according to the complaint.
Police have booked both the accused under Section 380 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). On June 20, the NADRA had rejected reports claiming breach in the voters data as alleged by some political quarters. NADRA issued a clarification a day after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) wrote a letter to the authority, in which it raised the issue of leak of voters data by someone in the authority to the PML-N. The ECP letter said that the breach had reportedly occurred in the computerised electoral rolls system (CERS).
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, four director generals of NADRA had rejected the allegations. “There has never been a data breach in the history of NADRA. We have never shared any citizen’s data with anyone,” they had maintained, adding that the ECP letter had no mention of the security breach.
Published in Daily Times, July 1st 2018.
