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12.4 million South African minors have had their information leaked

The data leak that appears to affect every single South African has just become a lot more harrowing.

Local developer Gerd Naschenweng and Troy Hunt have run an analysis of the data that made its way onto a public facing server and discovered that of the 60 million plus records, 12.4 million of those are minors.

The records of children and teenagers account for 29% of the dataset.

A screengrab of the dataset posted by Naschenweng reveals children as young as three years old are compromised.

The dataset appears to contain the data of children. Used with permission – Gerd Naschenweng.

The question we have is why are the records of children on this database?

As Naschenweng rightly points out the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has agreements within in the financial sector for purposes of identity verification and fraud prevention. But children don’t really play in the financial sector, especially at three years old.

That means that the data of minors has no place in this leak and yet here we sit. It seems some tough questions to have to be answered such as why the data of children is being handed to private companies.

The DHA told IOL that is investigating the matter and would provide a comprehensive response. But when?

There are millions of South Africans that could potentially have their identities stolen.

This is a serious matter and the response from government and the businesses named thus far has been lacklustere to say the least.

If there was ever a reason for the protection of personal information act to be signed into law – this is it.

[Source – Naschenweng.info] [Image – CC BY 0 Pixabay]

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