France confirms a data breach in a government agency that manages citizens’ identities

The French government agency that issues and manages citizens’ identity documents, including national identity cards, passports and immigration documents, confirmed on Wednesday that it had suffered a data breach.

In an announcement, the National Securities Agency (ANTS) said the data stolen in the hack could include the full names, dates and places of birth, postal and email addresses, and phone numbers of an unknown number of citizens. ANTS said the investigation to determine how the breach occurred and its impact is ongoing, and people whose data was affected are being notified.

ANTS, which said it discovered the attack on April 15, did not specify how many people were affected by the hack. But some reports indicate that millions may have had some of their personal information stolen.

According to Bleeping Computer, a hacker announced the stolen data on a hacking forum, claiming to have a database containing 19 million records. The hacker’s forum post noted the same type of stolen information as mentioned in the ANTS announcement and was published before ANTS publicly disclosed the breach on April 20.