Foreign affairs officials on Monday assured the National Privacy Commission (NPC) that no passport data breach had taken place in the department, contrary to the claim made by Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on his Twitter post on Jan. 9.
The personal data of all passport applicants remain under the control of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), said Assistant Foreign Secretary Medardo Macaraig and Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs Neil Ferrer.
鈥淭he [DFA] assured the [NPC] that it takes extremely seriously the protection of the personal information of the public and that all passport data is safe,鈥� the officials said in a statement.
Unauthorized party
鈥淭he department remains in custody and control of passport data and that this has not been shared with or accessed by any unauthorized party,鈥� they added.
The DFA said it would 鈥渃ooperate, especially with Congress, in any other investigation to be conducted on this issue.鈥�
Macaraig, who is also DFA鈥檚 data protection officer, and Ferrer gave a presentation on the passport process, including measures to protect applicants鈥� data, to NPC officials.
Locsin touched off a controversy on Jan. 9 when he tweeted that a 鈥減revious outsourced passport maker took all the data.鈥� He was replying to a complaint by a netizen about having to present his birth certificates to renew his passport. 鈥�Dona Z. Pazzibugan