The private details of thousand of football fans who bought FIFA world Cup tickets from official FIFA outlets have been stolen and sold for about £500,000. Investigations are on to establish who purchased the details that include passport information and dates of birth of up to 250,000 supporters. There are huge concerns that the details might have fallen into the hands of criminal gangs or even terrorist groups.
It is suspected that an employee of one ticketing agency might have been offering the information for sale. This massive breach which has compromised the private data of thousands of football fans is now under criminal investigation.
The stolen database was compiled by FIFA football’s world governing body, in the run-up to the 2006 World Cup in Germany. It contains details of more than 35,000 England fans, as well as tens of thousands more supporters from other countries.
An inquiry has been launched by The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK data watchdog. It also aims to determine if the private information of fans that travelled to this summer’s World Cup in South Africa is at risk.
Mick Gorrill, head of enforcement at the ICO, said: “We have been made aware that the personal details of some 35,689 England fans have been unlawfully traded for profit. The information relates to fans who bought tickets for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.We have contacted FIFA regarding the allegations and will be liaising with the organisation further as we move forward with an investigation.”
He also added,” the unlawful trade in people’s personal information is a criminal offence under the Data Protection Act. We have launched a full investigation. As part of our investigation we will be working together with international data protection authorities. We expect to be able to provide more details as our investigation develops, including advice for those who believe that their details may have been involved in this incident.”
Meanwhile, ICO has already questioned UK-based firm Byrom which, through a foreign subsidiary, had the official contract to provide tickets for the South African World Cup and several other tournaments. The firm was not involved in the ticketing arrangements in Germany but was questioned after it was claimed that an unnamed employee was behind the illegal data breach.
A spokeswoman for the company said, “We are fully co-operating with the ICO investigation.” She added, “We have studied the contents of this database and we can categorically say that we have never had access to this information in any form. It is not our database. Ticketing arrangements at the German World Cup, unlike other tournaments, were not undertaken by our firm.”
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