Joy, Palak sued for selling NID information

A case was filed yesterday against Sajeeb Wazed Joy, former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s son and ICT adviser, Zunaid Ahmed Palak, former state minister for ICT, and 17 others over selling citizens’ National ID (NID) information.

Another 15 to 20 unnamed individuals were also accused in the case filed by one Enamul Haque with Kafrul Police Station under the Cyber Security Act.

Joy, Palak and the others were also accused of embezzling around Tk 20,000 crore through the sale of the data, said Talebur Rahman, deputy commissioner (media) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Joy and Palak abused their powers by facilitating the sale of citizens’ NID information through an organised syndicate, according to the case statement.

They allegedly allowed Digicon Global Services Limited to use the NID data for business dealings with various organisations without ensuring national security and personal data protection.

The data was sold to approximately 182 entities, both domestic and international, resulting in concerns over public security, the plaintiff said in the case.

The other accused include Tareque M Barkatullah, former director of the data centre; Wahidur Rahman Sharif, director of Digicon; NM Ziaul Alam, former senior secretary of the ICT ministry; Mahbubur Rahman, former executive director (additional responsibility) of the Bangladesh Computer Council; Abdul Baten, former director (operations) of the National Identity Registration Wing at the Election Commission Secretariat.

The Detective Branch of police arrested former data centre director Tareque in the Kafrul area yesterday morning.

Ashraf Hossain, former senior maintenance engineer at the Election Commission Secretariat; Lt Col (retd) Rakibul Hasan from the National Telecommunication Monitoring Center (NTMC); Rezaul Islam, former deputy secretary of the Cabinet Division; Haider Ali, retired professor of the CSE department at Dhaka University, and Muhammad Mahfuzul Islam, former vice chancellor of the Canadian University of Bangladesh, were also accused in the case.

In the case statement, Enamul referenced news reports from the Daily Jugantor and Jamuna TV to state that the Election Commission prepared a list with the photos of 11.21 crore voters.

It has developed a data centre with 46 types of personal information of these voters. Tareque served as the director of the data centre from 2011 to 2023, and as the director of the Digital Security Agency, responsible for safeguarding national and public data, from 2019 to 2023.

The plaintiff alleges in the case that Joy colluded with Tareque and misused his authority to sell sensitive voter information on the open market.

The case says that former state minister Palak held a meeting with officials from the EC and the ICT Department, along with PM’s former ICT adviser Joy on March 21, 2019. During the meeting, Joy proposed obtaining a mirror copy of the NID card database.

The EC reportedly provided a mirror copy of this database to the National Computer Council.

Meanwhile, the authorities granted Digicon permission to conduct business by supplying the personal information of citizens to various organisations.

Using this access, Wahidur, director of Digicon, allegedly collaborated with Joy and others to launch a website under the domain porichoy.gov.bd.

This website reportedly began selling personal information to approximately 182 entities, both domestic and international, exploiting NID data for profit, the plaintiff said in the case.