Data protection breach: Police report filed

MaltaToday managing editor Saviour Balzan has filed a police report urging authorities to investigate how his call logs were illegally accessed and disseminated.

The police are being specifically asked to investigate, and initiate proceedings before the criminal court, how details of incoming and outgoing calls from Balzan’s mobile phone were passed on to Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Details of Balzan’s call logs were revealed in the blog of the Malta Independent, referring to calls between Balzan and the chief of staff of the Prime Minister, Keith Schembri.

Balzan on Thursday also submitted a complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner and telecoms companies Vodafone and GO.

In his complaint, Balzan said the posts suggested that Caruana Galizia was privy to phone records and other personal information, a suspicion she later confirms in the second post, through which she exposes the specific details of the alleged phone calls, including the phone numbers, the service providers, the time, as well as the duration of the calls.

Last night, service provider GO said it always collaborates with the relevant authorities on all matter relating to alleged breaches of privacy of data.

“GO takes all matters relating to the privacy of data of its clients seriously and the Company has in place a number of systems and processes to protect this privacy,” the company said in a statement.

“In fact, an internal investigation was immediately launched and there is no indication so far that any client’s privacy has been compromised.” 

Likewise, this morning, Vodafone issued a statement, stating that an internal investigation had been launched: "At this stage, however, we have no evidence whatsoever to indicate that there has been a breach in the systems in place to protect our customers’ communication.”