PERSONAL data protection is certainly in a mess as two wings of the police — the Anti-Terrorism Unit and Rapid Action Battalion 6 — are reported to have sold personal data — including the national identity card details, call records and subscriber’s identity module data — of an estimated 15,000 people stored with the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre to unnamed quarters. The issue of grave concern as the personal information of citizens has also been leaked earlier. A US-based technology news site on July 7, 2023 reported that a researcher working for a cyber-security entity had discovered on June 27 that a government web site in Bangladesh had leaked personal information — including full name, phone number, e-mail address and the national identity card number — of several million Bangladeshis. The researcher that time contacted the Bangladesh’s e-Government Computer Incident Response Team shortly after the incident. Given the two incidents having happened in about a year, this suggests that the government is not serious or incapable of protecting citizens’ data or the people and the agency vested with the task of guarding data are not righteous or competent enough. This is what appears dubious and troublesome. And, this, at the same time, brings up the classic proverbial saying — who will guard the guards themselves?
The National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre director general, who has confirmed the sales of the data but has said that the centre was still in the dark about whom the data have been sold to, says that they have closed the access of the Anti-Terrorism Unit and Rapid Action Battalion 6 to the National Intelligence Platform for selling the data to unnamed quarters via Messenger and Telegram apps. The centre sent a letter to the home ministry on April 28 seeking action against a superintendent of the Anti-Terrorism Unit and an assistant superintendent of the battalion’s Unit 6 for their alleged involvement in the sales of data. The centre notes that it is now for the two agencies to find out to whom the data were sold. The Anti-Terrorism Unit chief, however, seeks to say that it was not the superintendent in question but two constables of the cyber crime and operations wings were involved in the sales. And, the chief says, the agency has suspended the two constables after an investigation on having heard of the matter before the national centre wrote to the home ministry. But all this does not certainly lessen the gravity of the crime and does not absolve the agency, either of them, and the people alleged to have been involved in the act of the responsibility for the crime. The police units having no access would now need to collect citizens’ data from their headquarters or mobile operations which could delay investigations, cause some inconvenience, at least for some time, to citizens.
The government must, however, remember that nothing can be more important than holding the agencies to justice for their crimes. Further important for the government is to ensure that keepers of personal data are keepers above all else and not thieves or traders indulging in illegal acts for money.