E-Government is a Joke
birbsophone
An electronic government platform is essentially a portal that enables access to a variety of governmental services. On these platforms can you manage official documents, registrations, tax payments, (obviously) anything related to your identity as a citizen, and more. These services are accessible with any device that has access to the Internet and a modern web browser.
So… What’s Wrong With It
Such systems that hold valuable data had better be secure, right? Well, it seems so that these platforms are the most insecure in the world. Entire nations’ citizens’ identities have been leaked, yet, nobody bats an eye.
The fact is, it’s already careless enough to expose such a high value target for adversaries to the Internet. In addition to this inherent flaw, inept companies’ services are used instead of secure, reasonably trusted solutions.
In the case of Turkey, infamous with generally insecure Internet solutions (hosting providers, Internet Service Providers, e-government, etc.), teenagers share web sites around, web sites that can show somebody’s entire identity to the user, including but not limited to the following information: Home address, identity number, family tree, phone number, date of birth. All with just two things needed: a name and a surname. These web sites aren’t hard to find either, they’re not .onion sites, just simple clearnet domains, usually with a community located on Telegram. They advertise themselves on YouTube as well.
Located on the second image is the panel. You simply enter the name-surname, and access all the information shown in the first image. The website offers other categories, as well as paid services, that give more detailed information.
Conclusion
People don’t take responsibility of their personal data, and governments accross the world aren’t exempt from this either. Realistically, the only way to avoid such data leaks of this type is only to live in a country that at least has a reasonably secure platform (which is mostly unverifiable due to the closed nature of the system and lack of information/resources) or where you are not forced to use e-government.