At around 5pm yesterday, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) officially apologised for releasing an unsecured open link of around 11,981 potential students’ personal details.
Candidates that applied to enroll in UiTM’s foundation programme were told to review their own personal details such as their emails and identification card (IC) numbers through a Google Sheets link sent out by the university.
Unknown to the university, the unsecured spreadsheet mistakenly acted as an open source for the personal details of more than 11k Malaysians. It is not confirmed if house addresses and phone numbers were also included in the list.
This incident is worrying as it’s common for scammers to pose as government or bank officials by citing IC numbers to seem more legitimate to their victims.
UiTM’s apology came only after a candidate raised the matter on Twitter with screenshots of the spreadsheet.
The university’s official Twitter account simply replied to the candidate saying “the link to the list is no longer active and an update has been made. UiTM apologises for the error. Thank you”.
Netizens were quick to react to UiTM’s blunder.
Many were concerned with regards to scammers gaining access to the information. Others were upset that UiTM brushed the issue aside by simply Tweeting an apology without much accountability.
One Twitter user replied to the official apology saying “That’s UiTM’s standard” with several thumbs down emojis.
“You should be sued.”
“How will UiTM ensure this doesn’t happen again?”
With scam cases notoriously on the rise, data leaks are to be taken more seriously. The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission tweeted a reply to this issue saying that “the misuse of personal data like this is under the jurisdiction of the Personal Data Protection Department (JPDP). You can continue to submit your complaint to JPDP for their further action.”
What do you think of this incident? Do you take any extra precautions to protect your data? Let us know in the comments.
Also Read: “UiTM is for B40” – M’sians Condemn Students From T20 Households For Enrolling in UiTM
