Comelec belies breach of overseas voters’ data

MANILA – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Monday denied an alleged data breach involving documents on overseas voting.

The Comelec Cybersecurity Division launched an investigation simultaneous with the activation of all relevant cybersecurity protocols, including reporting such information to and enlisting the assistance of the National Computer Emergency Response Team and the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

“The Comelec takes matters of data privacy and cybersecurity seriously.” Comelec spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco said in a statement.

He noted that an initial investigation showed that the information included in the supposed data breach are the lists of applicants for consideration at the Resident Election Registration Board hearing and the lists of approved applicants from the 2013 election-year registration cycle.

Laudiangco said the supposed breach are unrelated to the Comelec’s current data and are not, in any way, connected to the May 12 midterm elections.

“Further, these documents are in fact posted online and are made publicly available online as mandated by Republic Act No. 10590, or the Overseas Voting Act of 2013,” Laudiangco said.

He said the poll body immediately and consistently complied with all the orders, instructions, protocols and mandatory actions required by the National Privacy Commission, including bolstering its information technology infrastructure and implementing enhanced cybersecurity protocols.

Such move came following the data breach in 2016, which resulted in unauthorized access to its database that compromised sensitive information of millions of Filipino voters.

“All Comelec servers, including the servers at the data centers to be utilized for the 2025 NLBPE (National, Local and Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections), are not connected to the internet and/or implementing air-gap measures as standard security measure,” Laudiangco said.

He added that official Comelelc website, www.comelec.gov.ph, contains only public information intended to serve the public and provide Filipinos an official resource center on elections.

He assured that those behind the supposed data breach will be subjected to a through probe.

The investigation will be conducted with the assistance of Comelec deputized agencies and offices Philippine National Police and National Bureau of Investigation and their anti-cybercrime divisions, DICT-CICC, and stakeholder partners Meta, Google, TikTok, and X.

“This imputation of an alleged data breach/leak is clearly done with malice and ill intent,” Laudiangco said. — Ferdinand Patinio  (PNA)