Highly sensitive data from the Ministry of Justice ended up in the environment: the parliament of Zurich decides PUK on the data scandal

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A convicted bartender from the Zurich environment who hoards dozens of hard drives with highly sensitive data from the public prosecutor’s office in a box in his garden – and tries to blackmail the authorities with it. What Blick and the “Tages-Anzeiger” announced at the end of last year sounded almost unbelievable.

For years, the Zurich Ministry of Justice had clumsily removed data carriers, as a result of which psychiatric reports and telephone numbers of police officers, among other things, fell into the wrong hands. A criminal case is pending.

Zurich’s cantonal council decided on Monday to set up a parliamentary commission of inquiry (PUK) to investigate the data scandal. It is the most powerful tool available to the cantonal parliament. The last time a PUK was used was 13 years ago – it was then about the corruption case at the Zurich pension fund BVK.

The administrative investigation remained hidden for a long time

The ‘data security incident’, as the Justice Department calls it, took place from 2006 to 2012 – under the auspices of then SP government councilor Markus Notter (62) and his successor Martin Graf (68) of the Greens. But the current director of justice, Jacqueline Fehr (60), is also criticized for launching an administrative investigation after the data breach became known in 2020 – but the audit committee of the canton council (GPK) has not even informed the audit committee of the canton council about the result. The final report did not become public until the case became public. The GPK criticized Fehr for it.

In the investigation, the PUK that is still to be used will now investigate, among other things, whether the Ministry of Justice handled the data security incident correctly. In addition, it is also necessary to look at the current state of data protection in the Zurich administration. (lha)

Source:Blick