IEC confirms ANC, MK Party candidate list leak

The lists were submitted by the ruling party and MK Party on Friday afternoon - in adherence to the IEC's deadline of 5pm.

However, hours later, the ANC and MK Party's national list of 200 candidates and some of its provincial lists were leaked on social media.

In an interview with SABC TV, IEC Chief Electoral Officer, Masego Sheburi, said internal process are underway to determine the source of the leak.

"The preliminary indications are that the unauthorised disclosure has all the hallmarks of reports generated on the internal administrative systems of the electoral commission so we can almost exclude a breach of security or a breach of data from outside. We think the disclosure unauthorised was done by one of our stuff members."

Sheburi added that the IEC has reported the leaks to the relevant authorities for further investigation.

The documents now in the public domain include the personal information like ID numbers of the candidates included on the ANC lists.

"The Commission has authorised an inquiry to try to trace the circumstances under which the list was disclosed and the identity of the person or persons who may be capable of the release of the list.

"We have also reported the unauthorised disclosure to the Information Regulator as required by the Protection of Personal Information Act because the list contains personal information of data subjects."

Adding to that, the IEC has also taken additional measures through the night on Friday to prevent any further leaks of election lists.

"The Commission has authorised an inquiry to understand the circumstances and the intent behind the disclosure so that appropriate actions can be taken. As we became aware of the breach over night, we have further limited the number of people who have access to those reports, because the number was always limited. But we further limited it so that we safe guard against any other additional unauthorised disclosures."

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