Data Leakage: Khaled urge UiTM to take follow-up action

KUALA LUMPUR: Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) has been urged to take follow-up action to overcome the issue of data leakage involving applicants for the university, after a recent breach.

Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said it was to ensure there would be no recurrence of data leakage in the future.

He said this after a working visit to the National Defence University of Malaysia (UPNM) here today.

Yesterday, media reports said UiTM through its official Twitter account @uitmofficial apologized for the mistake that led to the data leak involving 11,891 applicants of the university and informed that the link to the data list was no longer active following an update.

Meanwhile, director-general of the Personal Data Protection Department (JPDP) Prof Dr Mohd Nazri Kama said in a statement today that he had contacted UiTM to seek feedback and the ownership status of the data involved.

"We are also working with CyberSecurity Malaysia (CSM) to conduct further investigations into the incident to identify whether there was any breach under the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 (Act 709).

"JPDP takes a serious view of the personal data leakage incident of over 11,000 UiTM applicants as reported by a Twitter user through his tweet on Tuesday, May 9, 2023," he said.

He also urged all data users to comply with the principles, rules and standards of personal data protection under Act 709.

Data users are also reminded to be more thorough and careful when processing personal data to avoid data leakage due to negligence, he said.

-- BERNAMA