(Tirana) The Albanian prosecutor’s office announced on Thursday that it had opened an investigation into a massive leak and the dissemination of personal data on social networks. They include those of the prime minister and the president, AFP noted.
The data includes IDs, names of employers, monthly salaries and phone numbers.
700,000 people affected
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 details began to be disseminated on WhatsApp and other social networks on Wednesday.
“Prosecutors have opened an investigation,” the prosecutor’s office in the capital Tirana said in a statement.
According to media reports, investigators seized the servers of several institutions, including 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 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 general elections, the data of nearly a million Albanians had leaked to the media.
No one has so far been implicated in this case.