TIRANA, Jan. 7 – Four people have been arrested as the investigation into the massive leak of Albanians’ personal and wage information continues, prosecutors said in a press conference Friday.
Two of those arrested are state IT employees and two work in the private sector, said Tirana Chief Prosecutor Elisabeta Imeraj.
She added the leak appears to have been part of a for-profit scheme through which state employees with access illegally obtained the data and sold it to private companies looking to capitalize on the data to increase their businesses’ bottom lines.
The two arrested state employees worked at AKSHI, the state’s telecommunications’ regulator, and were assigned to the tax authorities database.
Imeraj said the investigation is continuing in the Directorate of Road Transport from where another breach of license plate data was leaked.
“With a reasonable suspicion as a result of the preliminary investigation, we have identified four perpetrators,” Imeraj said. “Having access to personal salary data of several months, one entered into the system, took the data and shared it with a colleague who later sold it to private entities.”
Imeraj said prosecutors suspect these were the same people who leaked the Socialist Party’s patronage database, which included the name, ID and voting preference.
Albanian prosecutors had earlier seized the servers and interrogated employees at three suspected institutions where they now believe insiders obtained and leaked personal and wage data for more than 690,000 Albanians.
The leaked files circulated widely online, mostly through the WhatsApp instant messenger. Several Albanian media outlets published extracts of information involving public figures.
The prime minister has publicly apologized for the state’s failure in safeguarding the information, while the opposition has called for his resignation over the affair.
The leak has also caused major worries in Albania’s business community over potential social and competition backlash of the wage data being public.
While salary information is one aspect most are focusing on, security experts warn that the database contains other information that can be a treasure trove for criminal groups and other malign actors, and that severe outcomes are possible.
