IT employee in Dresden dismissed on suspicion of data protection breach

The city of Dresden has dismissed an IT employee for allegedly storing the entire electoral notification directory privately. This contains data on around 430,000 eligible voters in the state capital - names, addresses and dates of birth. "The accused has since declared on oath that he has not used, passed on or copied the data in question," the city announced. He has been banned from the premises.

The public prosecutor's office and Dresden police headquarters are investigating the 54-year-old on suspicion of violating Saxony's Data Protection Implementation Act. He is also accused of connecting external private storage media to the city's official IT technology without authorization from May to mid-October of this year and transferring a total of around 270,000 files. The man worked as a system administrator in the city's own IT services company for the citizens' office, among others.

Dresden wants to review data protection security precautions

The suspicion of a data protection breach was discovered during regular checks on the handling of data by the city's IT department, according to the city. The storage of data on non-official devices is strictly prohibited by the service regulations. The incident will be taken as an opportunity to review the security precautions once again. Further technical and organizational measures to increase information security are planned and will be implemented in the short term.

It is unclear why the man stored the data privately. The motive is the subject of further investigations, the public prosecutor's office announced. The accused has not yet commented on the allegations. According to the city, he let a deadline for commenting on the case pass.