The Albanian public prosecutor's office announced Thursday that it had opened an investigation into a massive leak and the dissemination on social networks of personal data including those of the prime minister and the president, according to an AFP journalist who saw them.
The data includes IDs, names of employers, monthly salaries and phone numbers.
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The Albanian press estimated the number of people affected by the leak at almost 700,000, including bank employees, business leaders, civil servants, members of the military and intelligence services as well as journalists. Prime Minister Edi Rama and President Ilir Meta are also among those whose personal data began to be disseminated on WhatsApp and other social networks on Wednesday, the AFP journalist noted.
"Prosecutors have opened an investigation,"
the Tirana prosecutor's office said in a statement. According to media reports, investigators seized the servers of several institutions including the tax services and social security. The Prime Minister assured during a press conference that it was not a
"cyber attack"
and that the leak had been
"organized"
from the inside by people with access to the databases.
He promised that this incident would be fully investigated.
“The aim was also to cause confusion and undermine stability,”
he said.
This is the second major personal data leak in Albania.
In April, before the parliamentary elections, the data of nearly a million Albanians had leaked to the media.
No one has so far been implicated in this case.