Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 17) — The World Health Organization (WHO) is not involved in the reported leak of personal data related to COVID-19 vaccination in the Philippines, an official from the United Nations agency said on Friday.
WHO Representative to the Philippines Dr. Rui Paulo de Jesus said the organization does not have access to personal data, which is the exclusive domain of governments. He said WHO only gathers the total number of COVID-19 infections, deaths, and doses administered.
“Reports that a data breach linked to WHO or WHO-hosted databases has occurred are false and inaccurate,” he said in a statement.
RELATED: DICT finds COVID-19 vax data in dark web after reported WHO cyberattack
The Department of Health on Tuesday said it received reports that COVID-19 vaccination data from the Philippines “housed within the WHO” have been compromised and leaked.
The Department of Information and Communications Technology said vaccination data from the Philippines has been uploaded to the dark web following a supposed cyberattack on the WHO database.
DICT spokesperson Assistant Secretary Aboy Paraiso said they cannot ascertain the full extent of the data leak, but they deduce it includes the names and addresses submitted prior to vaccination.
