Last June, while investigating the sale of voter lists, Dismislab found an advertisement for personal information in the comments section of a Facebook post.

Searching for the term “sign copy” used in the advertisement produced 675 posts. Of these posts, published between 15 June and 15 July, 605 offered to sell personal information.

Following a lead from one such post, Dismislab found a Telegram group called “Voter List”. After seeing an advertisement offering NID details for sale, Dismislab researchers contacted the advertisers posing as buyers.

They provided a mobile phone number and paid Tk 500, after which the advertisers sent a PDF of the subscriber’s NID card within 17 minutes.

All the information in the document, including the name, photograph and date of birth, matched the details of the relevant SIM card owner. Even the subscriber’s mother’s name, which had been corrected two months earlier, appeared in its updated form.