Transparency and accountability are two foundational principles of democracy. As such, they are well entrenched in the Philippine Constitution, which provides for the right of Filipinos to hold the government and public officials accountable for any or all of their mistakes or shortcomings. The signing of Executive Order (EO) №2 Read more…
We, the undersigned, as civil society organizations and concerned citizens of the Philippines, express our grave concern for the recent proceedings regarding the promulgation of the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of Republic Act No. 11055, or the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) Act. During the weekend of September 22, the Read more…
This article was originally posted at GMA News Online. A little over two years ago, in the run-up to the 2016 national elections, a massive data breach earned the Philippines an unenviable place in the global spotlight. The headlines then said it all: Personal data of 55 million Filipino voters exposed! Read more…
The Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA) on June 28, 2017 held a forum on the State of Open eGovernance in the Philippines. Dr. Randy Tuano from the Ateneo Economics Department, who is also the President of the Board of Trustees of FMA and part of the core research group Read more…
In March 2016, the Philippines took global headlines by storm when the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) website was breached and several voters’ databases were leaked online. The breach, popularly referred to as COMELeak, is now known to be one of the biggest government-related breaches in world history as it involved Read more…
If the people concerned are to be believed, the U.S. and EU will soon see their long-standing Safe Harbor Agreement renewed, featuring significant changes relating to more privacy protections for EU citizens. The Safe Harbor Pact between the two economic powers was installed fifteen years ago, to avoid any disruption Read more…
Some time last year, news broke out that U.S. telecommunications giant, AT&T, had suffered a major data breach resulting in unlawful third-party access to its customer records. Estimates put the number of people affected at over 280,000 in total.[1] Sensitive personal information like social security numbers were among the primary Read more…