Comelec to take down online voters' list amid privacy issues
By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 03:12pm (Mla time) 03/16/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- The National Capital Region office of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said it would take down the old voters' list that has been available on the Internet.

This was its reaction to privacy concerns raised by some individuals. A blogger has for one raised the issue of possible identity theft, while feedback received by INQUIRER.net pointed out that people had been spreading the old voters' list via e-mail.

"We're going to take it down today," lawyer Michael Dioneda, director III of Comelec NCR, told INQUIRER.net.

Dioneda said the online voters' list dates back to the 2004 national elections. It contains about 5.7 million names of Filipino voters residing in the National Capital Region, their addresses and their assigned precincts.

The Comelec official admitted that this has been an "oversight," which they have to address immediately.

"Our objective back then was to facilitate access to information about precincts. This list has been up, I presume, since 2004," he added.

The Comelec NCR announced last week that the total number of voters in the region was about 5.6 million as of March 7, 2007.

"We're still in the process of cleansing our list of double registrants," he said.

Comelec NCR expects to complete its updated voters' list by next week.

Dioneda said that the poll body will likely put the updated voters' list online using a different format, which will exclude specific address.

In an e-mail, blogger Alex Maximo said another blogger wrote about the risk of having all information about voters "out in the open."

"I know this is a cause for alarm since identity theft has been quite rampant. Not to mention personal security issues that everyone on the voters' list will face as it contains relevant personal info like complete names, birthdates, voter's registration details, and addresses (complete with number and street!). Informing people is one thing but leaving this wealth of information that may breach personal privacy out in the open without any form of security or access control is inexcusable," he said.