THE Anwar Ibrahim administration must set a more transparent and sustainable approach towards dealing with national security issues, Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) president Muhammad Mohan said today.

He said that the government must do better than previous governments, which includes implementing a long-term solution for data privacy and security. 

“The data breach problem appears to be recurring and tends to be reported by the press before the government takes any steps to inform the public, whether it involves promises of investigation, or outright denial,” he said, referring to cases of data leaks and sales of personal data on open platforms in recent months.

Muhammad said the previous Perikatan Nasional (PN) government had informed the public that it was looking into previous leaks, but “half a year later we do not know the status of the investigation or the cause of the leaks”.

He added that it was disappointing that there are fresh allegations of personal data leaks. 

Muhammad said TI-M noted that Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil had urged CyberSecurity Malaysia and the Personal Data Protection Department to investigate whether there was a data leak.

“TI-M urges the government to share with the public transparently what the findings of the previous investigations were, what action has been taken against those responsible, and what remedial measures have been implemented in the affected organisations or agencies. 

“The same methodology must be applied to the hilt for the investigations into the latest data leak, involving the data of 12.5 million Malaysians.

“The people voted for change. The change must extend beyond the names of the people behind the post, and the social media posts. 

“The change must be seen in the transparency and sustainability of handling national interest crises,” he said.

Last week, Facebook user Pendakwah Teknologi claimed that user information on nearly 13 million Malaysians held by Maybank, Astro and the Election Commission had been leaked.

According to the post, a website listed details of 3.5 million Astro subscribers and 1.8 million Maybank customers, as well as 7.2 million voters at 7.56pm on December 25.

The leaked information allegedly involved the login ID, full name, date of birth, address of users.

Maybank denied any leaks had come from its system. – January 5, 2023.