KUALA LUMPUR: Police will investigate a claim by a former Election Commision (EC) volunteer that he had sold confidential voters' details to various parties, including a person purportedly linked to the Dr Mahathir-Lim Kit Siang Declaration camp.
Deputy Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Noor Rashid Ibrahim said details of voters in EC database are protected under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), and any act of leaking them to unauthorised parties is an offence.
"Information contained in the EC's database are confidential... and when it is classified as confidential, by law, such data can only be accessible by authorised personnel.
"Any action of leaking confidential information to unauthorised parties is an offence, and those involved can be investigated under the OSA.
"Police will look into the man's claim, and see what kind of information that he had allegedly sold," he told reporters at the Police Training Centre, here today.
Noor Rashid was there to witness the duty handover ceremony between outgoing federal police Strategic Resources & Technology Department director Datuk Zaleha Abdul Rahman and her successor Datuk Fatimah Ghazali.
Yesterday, a freelance computer programmer claimed that a woman he knew only as Ema had contacted him to purchase database on Malaysian residents.
The information, he claimed, was bought to boost the number of signatures of people who purportedly supported the declaration.
Speaking at a press conference, Azharuddin Othman @ Abdullah, 30, from Terengganu claimed that he was contacted by Ema, who was also referred to as Ratu Naga (Dragon Lady), on April 27.
"She wanted to purchase the Malaysian residents' database to gain the 1.2 million signatures needed by (former prime minister) Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad for his declaration project," he claimed, adding Ema knew he had access to a database of millions of Malaysians, which could be broken down into several categories.
Azharuddin also claimed that although he was promised RM5,000 for the database, Ema only paid him RM1,000 via a bank transaction last month.