Bangladeshi police agents under investigation for allegedly selling citizens’ personal data on Telegram

Two senior officials working for anti-terror police in Bangladesh have been accused of collecting and selling classified and personal information of citizens to criminals on Telegram, according to a report by TechCrunch. The data allegedly sold included national identity details, cell phone call records, and other classified secret information.

The letter detailing the allegations was signed by Brigadier General Mohammad Baker, director of Bangladesh’s National Telecommunications Monitoring Center (NTMC). Baker confirmed the legitimacy of the letter and its contents in an interview with TechCrunch. The two police agents involved were caught after investigators analyzed logs of the NTMC’s systems and their access patterns.

One of the accused officials is a police superintendent with the Anti-Terrorism Unit (ATU), while the other is an assistant police superintendent deputy at the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB 6). The NTMC, responsible for monitoring telecommunications traffic to detect threats to national security, runs the National Intelligence Platform (NIP) where classified citizen information is stored.

The investigation revealed that the accused agents accessed and collected irrelevant information from the NIP platform and passed it on to a Telegram group administrator for sale. As a result, all NIP users from ATU and RAB 6 have had their access suspended until the investigation is complete.

This incident raises concerns about the security and privacy of citizen data in Bangladesh, with previous cases of data leaks from government agencies. Despite ongoing investigations, there are reports of other officials offering to sell citizens’ data, highlighting the need for stricter safeguards and accountability measures.