Personal info leak: NCR joins probe

UNSECURED SERVER: REGULATOR WORKS WITH HAWKS

29% of leaked records appeared to be that of children and teenagers.

The National Credit Regulator (NCR) has now also joined the investigation into the massive tranche of South Africans’ personal data which was leaked onto the internet.

While the owner of the server appears to be Jigsaw Holdings, how and why the huge collection of information was collated remains unanswered.

It raises the question whether a credit bureau applicant is allowed to collect people’s ID numbers, bank accounts, home addresses and the like, and then hand it over to a third party.

However, the NCR was not able to answer.

“The NCR is currently conducting an investigation.

“We are working with other law enforcement agencies, such as the Hawks, in this investigation,” said Jacqueline Peters, manager of investigations and enforcement at the NCR.

When contacted, Jigsaw CEO Braam de Jager was allegedly away until today, while only one of the directors was in the office – and he was in a meeting according to the receptionist, who refused to give her name.

A closer scrutiny of the “master deeds” data kept on the unsecured server by web security specialist Troy Hunt has revealed a total of 66 360 837 records of South Africans were exposed to the world.

Hunt noted the records were split between approximately 57 million living people, and nine million deceased persons.

“I was pretty stunned to see that 19% of the records in there are apparently of children.

“That’s not including teenagers either and if we add them, that figure jumps to 29%,” said Hunt.