COMMUNICATIONS and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo has promised to look into incidents of data leaks, compromised communications and blocked websites that ocurred under the previous government.

The minister has requested reports on data breaches, bot attacks on cell phones on polling day on May 9 and the blocking of websites carrying election results the same night.

“In addition to that, there will be a review of certain provisions in the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 and proposals to amend them will be considered,” Gobind said in a statement today.

Gobind said he would also work with legal advocacy group Lawyers for Liberty and the Bar Council in reviewing the law.

The first data breach was discovered in October 2017 involving 46 million mobile phone subscribers and the second one was revealed in January this year, involving more than 200,000 organ donors. Both breaches were uncovered by online forum lowyat.net.

The bot attacks involved non-stop mystery phone calls to politicians’ mobile phones on polling day, jamming their communications and leading some opposition candidates to complain of a coordinated sabotage on their ground teams with their polling agents. 

On the night of May 9 as votes were being counted, websites such as live.undi.info which carried a live tally of the results were censored, with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) subsequently admitting it had ordered that such sites be blocked or redirected.

It said it did so on grounds of “public complaints” of allegedly inaccurate information and over concerns that the content would affect “national stability, public order and harmony, and economic stability”.

The censorship occurred amid a delay by the Election Commission to announce that Barisan Nasional had lost the polls and failed to retain the federal government. – May 27, 2018.