DATA ON NEARLY ALL VOTERS OF US EXPOSED IN MASSIVE LEAK

WASHINGTON A data analytics firm that worked on the campaign of Donald Trump exposed personal information belonging to some 198 million Americans, or nearly every eligible registered voter, security researchers said Monday.

Researchers at the consultancy Upguard said they discovered a “misconfigured database” containing sensitive personal details of the US voter database operated by Deep Root Analytics and used by the Republican National Committee in the 2016 election campaign.

A blog post by Upguard said the researchers were able to view “names, dates of birth, home addresses, phone numbers, and voter registration details, as well as data described as ‘modeled’ voter ethnicities and religions.”

The information was described as “a treasure trove of political data and modeled preferences used by the Trump campaign,” and the discovery offered a rare glimpse into the sophisticated voter targeting efforts used by the Trump camp during the White House race.

Contacted by AFP, Deep Root said in a statement it could not comment on specific clients but that it recently became aware “that a number of files within our online storage system were accessed without our knowledge.”

The statement added that the data accessed included “proprietary information as well as voter data that is publicly available and readily provided by state government offices.” “We take full responsibility for this situation,” Deep Root said.