Bangladeshi police brokers accused of promoting residents’ private data on Telegram

Two senior officers working for anti-terror police in Bangladesh allegedly collected and bought labeled and private data of residents to criminals on Telegram, TechCrunch has realized. 

The info allegedly bought included nationwide id particulars of residents, mobile phone name information and different “labeled secret data,” in response to a letter signed by a senior Bangladeshi intelligence official, seen by TechCrunch.

The letter, dated April 28, was written by Brigadier Basic Mohammad Baker, who serves as a director of Bangladesh’s Nationwide Telecommunications Monitoring Heart, or NTMC, the nation’s digital eavesdropping company. Baker confirmed the legitimacy of the letter and its contents in an interview with TechCrunch. 

“Departmental investigation is ongoing for each the instances,” Baker mentioned in a web based chat, including that the Bangladeshi Ministry of Residence Affairs ordered the affected police organizations to take “essential motion in opposition to these officers.” 

The letter, which was initially written in Bengali and addressed to the senior secretary of the Ministry of Residence Affairs Public Safety Division, alleges the 2 police brokers accessed and handed “extraordinarily delicate data” of personal residents on Telegram in alternate for cash.

In accordance with the letter, the police brokers had been caught after investigators analyzed logs of the NTMC’s methods and the way typically the 2 accessed it.

The letter reveals the id of the officers. One of many accused is a police superintendent serving with the Anti-Terrorism Unit (ATU). The opposite is an assistant police superintendent deputy on the Speedy Motion Battalion, often known as RAB 6, a controversial paramilitary unit that the U.S. authorities sanctioned in 2021 over allegations that the unit is linked to lots of of disappearances and extrajudicial killings. TechCrunch shouldn’t be naming the 2 individuals who had been accused because it’s unclear if they’ve been charged underneath the nation’s authorized system.

The NTMC is a authorities intelligence company established underneath Bangladesh’s Ministry of Residence Affairs. The company’s core job is to watch all telecommunications visitors and intercept telephone and net communications to detect and stop threats to nationwide safety. 

Organizations like Human Rights Watch and Freedom Home have criticized the NTMC for missing safeguards in opposition to abuses, each in opposition to free speech in addition to privateness. Over time, NTMC procured subtle expertise from corporations in Israel, which Bangladesh doesn’t formally acknowledge, in addition to different Western international locations, to conduct mass surveillance largely on opposition social gathering members, journalists, civil society members and activists.  

As a part of its mission, the NTMC runs the Nationwide Intelligence Platform, or NIP, an inside authorities net portal that holds labeled citizen data, like nationwide identification particulars, mobile phone registration and cell information information, felony profiles and different data. 

Varied legislation enforcement and intelligence companies have person accounts on the NIP portal supplied by the NTMC. 

NTMC’s personal investigation concluded that the brokers used the NIP platform extra continuously than others, and accessed and picked up data that was not related to them.

“Contemplating the context, such irrelevant entry and illegal handover of extraordinarily delicate labeled information ought to be investigated to determine everybody concerned on this and we additionally request for applicable motion in opposition to all these recognized/concerned,” the letter learn.  

Baker informed TechCrunch that there have been a “variety of Telegram channels,” including that one among them was referred to as BD CYBER GANG.

TechCrunch couldn’t determine the precise channel on Telegram. 

Baker informed TechCrunch that it seems that the 2 brokers despatched the data to the administrator of at the very least one Telegram group, who then tried to promote it. 

Baker mentioned that the 2 brokers have been notified of the investigation. 

Due to the investigation, all NIP customers from ATU and RAB 6 have had their entry suspended “till the concerned officers are recognized, and correct motion is taken,” in response to the letter.

Baker confirmed the suspended entry, saying that if brokers “want any data for investigation functions they will accumulate by means of Police and RAB HQ.”

Spokespeople for Bangladesh’s Ministry of Residence Affairs and ATU didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark. An individual figuring out solely as an “operations officer” at RAB 6 informed TechCrunch that the company had no remark. 

Final yr, a safety researcher discovered that the NTMC was leaking individuals’s private data on an unsecured server. The leaked information included real-world names, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, places and examination outcomes, in response to Wired. One other Bangladeshi authorities company, the Workplace of the Registrar Basic, Delivery & Demise Registration, additionally leaked residents’ delicate information final yr, as TechCrunch reported on the time.

In each instances, the leaks had been discovered by Viktor Markopoulos, a researcher who works at Bitcrack Cyber Safety. 

Whereas these had been vital instances of information publicity, this incident allegedly involving the ATU and RAB 6 brokers is doubtlessly extra damaging, provided that the brokers allegedly bought data on-line in an try to revenue from their privileged entry to labeled private data.  

Though the incident is underneath investigation, a well-placed supply inside the authorities informed TechCrunch that there are nonetheless officers who’re providing to promote residents’ information.