Controversial blogger Chris-Vincent Agyapong Febiri has once again caused outrage with his new blog post on EC over putting out date of voters register without any form of keeping others details.
in a post on his wall he state that, It baffles the EC of Ghana would publish the names, age and sex of the entire voting population in this careless manner, in a way that breaches every sensible data protection laws and open a floodgate of future abuse of data.
Did they ask people if they wanted their details published? The reason is, in places like the U.K., they have open voter’s register which can be accessible (I think at a fee) but it contains limited details of only those who have agreed to have their details in the open. Many opt out. And the full register, you can access at certain places but it contains limited information.
It’s not about whether you have something to hide or nothing, it’s about your data and privacy. The most valuable asset of our technological era is data.
Also, the cheap manner this was done is worrying—PDF grouped in folders and published online. That is absurd.
Why didn’t they create a database where people will have to type their own names and date of birth correctly to retrieve their data? A simple search interface with all the data hidden behind would have suffice.
It’s not right, no matter the intended outcome. You can just download names, voter’s ID numbers and other details of millions of people in a click, just like that.
So all a person needs is, to take your details and put someone’s picture to a fake ID card—and use it for whatever nefarious act.
We could have done better! What about how much this cost to be done? he asked.
