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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider Ex-Smartmatic official linked to alleged security breach now with NBI—Sotto

Ex-Smartmatic official linked to alleged security breach now with NBI—Sotto

Published Mar 18, 2022 01:36 pm

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has in its custody a former employee of Smartmatic who allegedly brought out confidential information related to the forthcoming May 9, 2022 national and local elections.

Senate President Vicente C. Sotto III on Friday, March 18 said this information was obtained from NBI when the Senate electoral reforms and people’s participation committee conducted a hearing on alleged security or data breaches at Smartmatic.

Sotto, a vice presidential candidate, said they were given a copy of the affidavit of the former Smartmatic employee.

The Senate chief, however, said he could not reveal the identity of the former employee or the contents of his affidavit because these data were given during an executive session (closed door meeting).

Under the rules of the Senate, data or information given during an executive session could not be released unless senators reach a decision to reveal them such as what happened yesterday where they revealed that a former Smartmatic employee brought out data for the coming elections.

Sotto said all he could say is that the employee is not disgruntled but was corrupted because he was offered money just to bring out information from Smartmatic.

Smartmatic supplied the Commission on Elections (Comelec) vote counting machines and technology for the automated election system (AES) and is now the software provider of Comelec.

Yesterday, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez stated that as far as the relationship of Smartmatic and Comelec is concerned, the poll body is fully in charge of the elections and that they are confident that even in this particular case, no hacking occurred and that the alleged hacking has no impact on the election results for 2022.

Related Tags

security breach Tito Sotto NBI Comelec automated election system (AES) smartmatic
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