This is a major security issue

The Department of Foreign Affairs is now requiring people who are renewing their passports to bring their birth certificates as they revealed that all the applicant’s data was taken away by the previous passport maker when their contract was terminated.

Everybody agrees with me that old passport is 1000% ID better than birth certificate: the holder applied for it and not someone else for a baby. But we are rebuilding our files from scratch because previous outsourced passport maker took all the data when contract terminated. https://t.co/cPjC3w7kAt

— Teddy Locsin Jr. (@teddyboylocsin) January 8, 2019

“We are rebuilding our files from scratch because previous outsourced passport maker took all the data when contract terminated,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. revealed in Twitter.

Because previous contractor got pissed when terminated it made off with data. We did nothing about it or couldn’t because we were in the wrong. It won’t happen again. Passports pose national security issues and cannot be kept back by private entities. Data belongs to the state. https://t.co/8vsN96jqij

— Teddy Locsin Jr. (@teddyboylocsin) January 8, 2019

“Because previous contractor got pissed when (we) terminated it made off with data. We did nothing about it or couldn’t because we were in the wrong. It won’t happen again. Passports pose national security issues and cannot be kept back by private entities. Data belongs to the state,” he added.

This means that applicants that are renewing brown or green passports, along with people renewing maroon machine-readable passports will have to submit birth certificates.

“We need to capture and store the document in our database as we no longer have the physical copy of the document,” DFA Assistant Secretary Elmer Cato said.

The DFA will have to clarify to the public what happened with the data that was with the previous passport maker, and how many Filipinos are affected by this. A birth certificate holds a lot of personal information which can be used to compromise accounts.