Following “Socialist Party patrons,” “Salaries,” and “License Plates,” another Excel database containing private information about Albanian citizens is spreading on the Internet. Phone numbers are being sold in “promotional packages” for prices ranging from 150 to 4000 euros.
“The domain has been opened in Panama, the country where you can do it without being held accountable,” said Shahin Dokuzi, an IT industry expert, for A2 CNN. “Payments are in cryptocurrency, so anyone may buy them.”
There is a rationale for registering the site in Panama. Another specialist in the topic, Besmir Semanaj, claims that “the Panama government does not pay attention and does not monitor the wrongdoers who buy the domains of these countries.”
But, at a time when practically all Albanian data is no longer private, what is the risk of disclosing phone numbers?
“Aside from marketing, they also do spam, such as inviting individuals to acquire cryptocurrency,” Dokuzi adds.
Experts can also tell you if the phone number database is related to the previous data flow.
“As far as I could tell, there was also data on the workplace, therefore I don’t think the data came from telephone providers,” Semanaj said.
The Commissioner for Personal Data Protection announced the launch of an investigation into the distribution of the internet telephone number database.