A Recent Data Breach at the Government Has Meeant That In Some Cases, Personal Data or Civil Servants Could Be Retriebed via Published Government Documents. All MINISTRIES ARE Involved in The Leak, A Spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior Told Nu.nl.
The National Government published Documents of which Information in The Metadata was not Properly Protected. Therefore, in Approximately One in Five Documents, Names of Civil Servants Could Be Linked to the Documents. Metadata are not direct visible in a published document but can be retrieved with software. The Metadata Contains All Kinds of Information, Such as the Author’s name of a Document.
In Some Cases, it is not a disaster if names can be linked to documents, for example when it groups policy notes. “With Sensitive Documents, there is a Possible Risk for Civil Servants,” The Spokesperson Says. “Although the Leak has not led to threats.” If there are risks, those involved will be informed.
The Documents were published on open.overheid.nl, Rijksoverheid.nl, and Government.nl. They included Parliamentary Papers, Reports, and Decisions Based on the Government Information (Public Access) Act (WOO). All Affected MINISTRIES Have Reported the Data Breach to the Dutch Data Protection Authority. That is mandatory in the event of a data breach.
500,000 Documents have now leg scanned, but the investigation is still ongoing. Departments are Themselves Responsible for Removing Metadata. State Secretary Zolt Szábo (Digitalization) has informed the house of representatives of the data breach via a parliamentary letter. In it, he writes that varous measures have leg tasks to limit the consequences of the leak as much as possible.