Department probing alleged household registration leak

• By Sean Lin / Staff reporter

The Department of Cyber Security is probing an alleged leak of Taiwan’s household registration information and would update the public when more information becomes available, Executive Yuan spokesman Ting Yi-ming (丁怡銘) said yesterday.

Ting’s remarks came after US-based cybersecurity firm Cyble on Friday said that it had discovered a leaked database — purportedly belonging to the government — containing the household registration information of more than 20 million Taiwanese.

The information contained in the 3.5 gigabyte database, titled “Taiwan whole country home registry DB,” allegedly includes people’s full names, addresses, national identification number, gender, date of birth and other information, it said.

Photo: CNA

The firm said that the database was discovered by one of its researchers on the dark Web a few weeks ago and was dropped by a well-known person who goes by the handle “Toogod.”

The leak occurred last year and originated from the Ministry of the Interior’s Department of Household Registration, Cyble said, citing Toogod.

It is unusual for an entire nation’s government data to be leaked, the company said, adding that it was investigating the matter.

Some of the entries in the database have been identified as information that date back “a long time,” Ting said yesterday.

The department and police are working to determine the authenticity of the data, he said.

A preliminary investigation has ruled out that the data are people’s household registration information and that they were leaked by a government agency, he added.

There are two versions of the database, one consisting of an aggregate of the entries and the other in which entries are categorized by administrative regions in the nation, Ting said, adding that the database is more likely a combination of information from several sources.