Freeweb - Turkey's Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, has confirmed a significant data breach, which was first reported by FreeWebTurkey and brought to court by the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA). Uraloğlu stated that the leak originated from the Ministry of Health.
The breach, reported on September 9, revealed that personal data belonging to 108 million Turkish citizens, including ID numbers and home addresses, had been stolen from official records. This incident follows the "Query Panel" scandal exposed by FreeWebTurkey in June 2023, which also involved the theft of millions of personal records. The MLSA's lawsuit against the Ministry of Interior regarding that case was dismissed, prompting the association to escalate the matter to the Constitutional Court.
Responding to questions from journalists after a Cabinet meeting at Beştepe, Uraloğlu acknowledged the data leak, attributing it to vulnerabilities in the health system during the COVID-19 pandemic. He clarified that there is no evidence of current data theft beyond that period. "This was a leak from the health system during the pandemic. Unfortunately, we couldn't prevent the extraction of certain data during that time," he stated.
The breach has sparked concerns about the security of personal data in Turkey, especially following reports that the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) admitted to being unable to protect the data and sought assistance from Google.
