Ecuador is pushing to pass a privacy law after the massive data breach that affected more than 20 million individuals.
In a tweet, Andrés Michelena, Ecuadorian telecoms minister, said a draft of a law, "Protection of Personal Data", had been sent to Congress to approve. The law, he said, will protect and regulate the data of Ecuador's citizens and also sanction who has a right to use it.
The breach, discovered by researchers at vpnMentor, found a leaked database in an unsecure network, containing large amounts of sensitive and personally identifiable information. The data breach involves around 18 GB of data and some of the data seems to involve individuals who are already deceased, say the researchers, as Ecuador has a population of around 16 million people. Individuals in the database are identified by a ten-digit ID code, similar to a social security number in the U.S. and also by Ecuador’s unique taxpayer registry, note the researchers.