Two men were sentenced by the Central Netherlands District Court to prison terms (partly suspended) for data theft from a GGD system. One of them must also perform 180 hours of community service. The pair from Heiloo (21) and Alblasserdam (23) worked for the GGD call center and were engaged in scheduling coronate tests. They both shared personal data of (known) persons with others. One of them also sold the data online.
Early this year, the GGD filed a report with the police. They heard from a journalist that there was a data breach. Personal data from a system used for the registration of corona tests would be traded online. This included data of Dutch celebrities. Investigation revealed that two employees of the GGD call center had viewed the files of two specific Dutch celebrities. On the phone of the 21-year-old man, 62 photos were then found with personal data. Also on his laptop was an Excel file containing the data of another 36 people. Police discovered that the man had posted 230 ads through various social media channels and the messaging service Telegram. For example, he wrote: "Are you looking for someone's address, BSN number etc. Then you have come to the right place. Message me for more info." The man told in court that he ended up selling the data of an "ordinary" citizen to one person and was paid €50 in Bitcoin for it.
The 23-year-old man from Alblasserdam did not sell personal data, but did look up the data of 20 people in the GGD system. Of four well-known Dutch people he sent it through Whatsapp to a friend. The court holds it heavily against this suspect that he also distributed the data of two crime journalists, who are known to be and were seriously threatened. Especially with these individuals, accessing and distributing their personal data poses additional security risks. When the defendant forwarded the data, he lost control over who the data might end up with.
The court imposed a prison sentence of 10 months of which 5 months were suspended. With the deduction of the remand, this means that he will have to go back to prison for another 2 months. The 23-year-old man was sentenced to 60 days in jail, of which 34 days were on probation. What remains is equivalent to his remand. In addition, the court imposed community service of 180 hours on him. The sentences are lower than those demanded by the prosecutor. Among other things, the court takes into account the youthful age of the defendants.
