EC made a mistake in making full data of electorates public - IT expert

An IT security consultant Prince Kpasra has flawed a decision taken by the Electoral Commission to make public, some details of electorates as captured in the voters register via a google drive document.

He argues that considering the use of sophisticated technology by fraudsters in recent times and the existence of Data Protection Laws, the EC could have managed the information more responsibly.

In an interaction on Citi FM, Mr. Kpasra said the EC could have, in the first instance, restricted access to the data it published on its website some days ago.

“The first thing is that they should have put it on their website and restricted access, but they put it on a public cloud, which is Google, and allowed anybody who wanted to download the information to download it,” he said.

Mr Kpasra expressed fears that some unscrupulous could use the data which has now been taken down by the EC to impersonate and defraud unsuspecting Ghanaians.

“There could be identity fraud where fraudster can use your ID number to register a SIM card…having all the information will make it easier for fraudsters to steal your identity for opening bank accounts and hacking social media,” he said.

The Electoral Commission published on its website the full names, age, polling station codes, gender amongst others of electorates. All details which were loaded on a google drive document was subsequently downloaded and shared amongst the citizenry.

The motive of the EC to allow some transparency in its operations as regards the December 7 polls was rather heavily castigated.