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February 01, 2026 – Bangladesh –
A major data protection failure at the Election Commission (EC) has exposed sensitive personal information of thousands of journalists, triggering widespread concern among media professionals and tech experts. The breach occurred on Saturday afternoon, when the EC’s online system inadvertently made public the full applications of around 14,000 journalists who had registered for accreditation and vehicle stickers ahead of the 13th national parliamentary election.
The exposed information included applicants’ names, national identity numbers, mobile phone numbers, and complete application details. According to reports, users who accessed the commission’s website shortly after 4:00 pm could view the list of journalists and their personal data without any restrictions. The vulnerability was reportedly triggered by a simple URL modification, where replacing “user” with “admin” in the address bar granted access to full application files. Although the site became inaccessible later in the evening, the damage had already occurred.
This incident followed intense pushback from the media community earlier in the week, after the EC announced a controversial plan to make online applications compulsory for journalist accreditation. Under pressure from journalists’ associations and civil society groups, the commission reversed this decision and reinstated the manual issuance of accreditation cards and vehicle stickers. However, the data breach happened during the brief window when journalists had already submitted their information online.
Information technology specialists criticised the EC for its lack of basic security protocols and inadequate access controls. Tanvir Hassan Zoha, a prosecutor at the International Crimes Tribunal and an IT expert, described the event as clear evidence of institutional negligence, questioning how a constitutional body could deploy a system with such glaring weaknesses. Experts also warned that the absence of proper security testing before launch has eroded public trust in state-run digital systems and could have long-term repercussions for Bangladesh’s broader digital transformation efforts.
Senior EC officials were reportedly unaware of the breach until late evening and declined to provide detailed comments, indicating that a review was planned. The incident has prompted calls for stronger data protection standards and accountability measures within government entities to prevent similar exposures in the future.
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