Thai government apologises for data leak, blames “temporary glitch”

The Thai government has released a statement apologising for the data leak on Monday which saw people who registered for a Covid vaccine have their personal information revealed. The government says there was a “temporary glitch” on the thailandintervac.com vaccination booking website and the error was because of “urgent system maintenance”.

Soon after the website launched, multiple expats complained that they could see and edit the personal information of other people registering because the information appeared on the web page. The site was quickly taken down. The site was shortly restored.

The Deputy Spokesperson for Thailand’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, Natapanu Nopakun, said the glitch was temporary and was fixed immediately by the Public Health Ministry (MOPH).

The MOPH says the developer was updating the system Monday afternoon to guarantee it could handle a great number of people registering. They say the glitch happened because the coding system was being reworked as the website was still running.

The MOPH asks users to report any further issues to the developer team the moment they encounter them. The MOPH’s statement is, “We’re sorry about the unexpected situation”.

Despite the assurances that the site has been fixed, just recently today, login and vaccination booking through the site were not read to use. Rather, users saw this message, “As a full appointment for vaccination, we will be announcing the new round of appointments for vaccination at http://www.thailandintervac.com. We apologize for all inconvenience”.

SOURCE: Thai PBS