The Ministry of Interior moved to conduct investigations into the leakage of personal information regarding the Minister of Public Works and Transport, Ali Hamiyah, from the platform of the Ministry of Public Health.
During the past months, experts warned of the weak protection measures in the ministry’s platform, which now includes personal data on more than half of the Lebanese who registered to receive a vaccine once morest the Corona virus.
The scandal erupted following Minister Hamiya announced that his data had been leaked, and he called the Minister of Interior, Bassam Mawlawi, to inform him of the matter. Minister Mawlawi immediately assigned the General Directorate of Public Security to carry out the necessary investigations to clarify this matter.
The Ministry of Interior stated in a statement that Minister Mollawi had previously sent a letter on January 14, 2022 to the Ministry of Public Health to review the measures taken on the aforementioned platform and implement cybersecurity standards.
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and the Central Inspection Authority had partnered with donors to invest in the “Ministries and Municipalities Joint Platform for Assessment, Coordination and Follow-up” (IMPACT), in an effort to improve the response to the Corona pandemic.
The SMEX organization had announced that the platform “has some unaddressed privacy and security risks associated with it,” explaining that “the privacy policy lacks some basic information regarding the retention and processing of personal data.” Also, the technical analysis conducted by SMEX revealed some vulnerabilities that expose the data collected on the platform.
The organization called on the Impact platform to use the latest and most advanced security measures in dealing with citizens’ personal records and medical backgrounds.
