CAF: the data of more than 10,000 beneficiaries have been published on the Internet
The National Family Allowance Fund (CNAF) has recognized a leak of data belonging to more than 10,000 recipients of the Gironde CAF, confirming information from French Radio.
The dates of birth, addresses, professional situations or even the amounts of the services of the persons concerned were put online by a service provider designated by the CAF de la Gironde in March 2021. This service provider, responsible for training employees in statistical software, had had access to an anonymized data set provided for this purpose. The CNAF specifies that the identities, postal codes, cities, e-mails and telephone numbers of the beneficiaries had in particular been deleted.
But the other data “should never have been put and maintained online”, underlines the organization which declares to have been informed last Monday. He claims to have “asked without delay for the deletion of the document posted online as well as all the copies that may still be in its possession”.
According to the association La Quadrature du Net, defender of fundamental freedoms in the digital environment, more than ten pieces of information have been revealed such as gender, type of accommodation, personal and professional situation, number of children, and information about them. It specifies that nothing justifies the use of personal data in this training, while the service provider, who remained anonymous, defended himself by declaring that he also thought that the data communicated was fictitious.
The approximately 10,200 beneficiaries affected have been notified and an internal investigation has been opened with the Gironde CAF to understand the circumstances of the leak.
