Joy, Palak, 17 others sued over leaking, selling NID data, 1 arrested

Tareque M Barkatullah, former director of the Election Commission's Data Centre, was arrested today (9 October) in a case filed over allegations of leaking and illegally selling mirror copies of personal information of over 11 crore citizens to various local and foreign organisations for money.

The case was filed on Tuesday night, which also named Sajeeb Wazed Joy, son of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, former ICT State Minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak, and 17 others. The case, filed under the Cyber Security Act, also mentioned 15 to 20 unnamed individuals.

"Enamul Haque filed the case with Kafrul Police Station, accusing the defendants of embezzling approximately Tk20,000crore through data sales," Maksuder Rahman, deputy commissioner of Dhaka metropolitan police (DMP)'s Mirpur division, said.

Following the arrest of an accused in a press briefing at DMP media centre, Talebur Rahman, DMP deputy commissioner (Media and Public Relations wing), said, "Tk20,000 crore was transacted through the sale of personal information of citizens stored in the data centre. A company called Digicon Global Service Limited is involved in this sale." 

A team of the Detective Branch (DB) of DMP arrested Tareque M Barkatullah from North Kazipara in the capital, he added. 

According to the case statement, Joy and Palak exploited their positions by facilitating the sale of NID information through a coordinated syndicate. The syndicate reportedly allowed Digicon Global Services Limited to use NID data for business transactions with various entities, without adequately protecting national security or citizens' personal information. 

Other notable individuals named in the case include Tareque M Barkatullah, former director of the Data Centre, Wahidur Rahman Sharif, director of Digicon Global Services, NM Ziaul Alam, former senior secretary of the Ministry of ICT, and Mahbubur Rahman, former executive director (additional charge) of the Bangladesh Computer Council.

Also accused are Abdul Baten, former director (operations) of the National Identity Registration Wing at the Election Commission Secretariat, Ashraf Hossain, former senior maintenance engineer at the Election Commission Secretariat, and Lt Col (retd) Rakibul Hasan from the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre, Haider Ali, retired professor of the CSE department at University of Dhaka, Muhammad Mahfuzul Islam, former vice chancellor of Canadian University of Bangladesh, and several former government officials responsible for handling NID data, such as Abdul Momin Sarkar, Sarwar Hossain, and Aliul Hasan.

DMP Deputy Commissioner Talebur Rahman said in October 2022, the Election Commission and the Bangladesh Computer Council signed a deal to use NID verification services. As per agreement, the Computer Council cannot exchange or sell the information to anyone.

Upon receiving mirror copies of personal information for 11 crore citizens, the Computer Council shared this data with Digicon Global Service Limited for commercial use. Since then, Digicon has been selling this information to over 180 local and foreign organisations.