The Lands Authority website is back online after it was taken down in November following the exposure of a massive personal data breach.

In November 2018, personal information of clients serviced by the Lands Authority ended up in the public realm, after a website fault allowed the data to be accessed through the internet.

Last month, the authority was fined €5,000 by the Data Protection Commissioner over the data breach.

The findings of the investigation by the commissioner’s office established that the online application platform available on the Authority’s portal lacked the necessary technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of processing.

“The Lands Authority was found to have infringed the provisions of Article 32 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and, in terms of Article 21 of the Data Protection Act (CAP. 586), was served with an administrative fine of €5,000. The level of the fine was reached after the Commissioner took into account the circumstances set out under Article 83.2 of the GDPR,” the office had said in a statement. 

The temporary ban imposed on the Authority’s portal was lifted, the office had said. 

The Lands Authority offered their full and unrestricted collaboration to the Commissioner during the course of the entire investigation, the statement said.