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I live in some EU country and I rely on social security provided by the regional government. There is a website for residents who can sign up and claim benefits without physically visiting an office. While helping a friend sign up, I accidentally discovered critical bugs that could enable anyone visiting the website to run arbitrary code. I documented my findings and sent them via email. I received an automated response that said my email was received but didn't hear any further.

To protect my data I disabled my account and asked all data to be removed from the website. I started walking half an hour to the office and doing everything on paper to receive my benefits. However after months, the exploit seems to have not been fixed yet. I am deeply concerned that a malicious actor could have already accessed the data and made the lives of the most vulnerable of our society even more vulnerable. Since the interface feels more than a decade old which suggests the back-end also is, this is a real possibility. Does GDPR mandate that institutions fix bad code that could compromise security and/or privacy of its users? If not is there any other legislation that I can cite to pressure them to fix their site? If I were outside the EU, what legislation would do the job?

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  • The word "exploit" is not being using in its plain and non-technical sense in this question. Is there another word which could be used which would be more clear?
    – ohwilleke
    Aug 29 at 19:05
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    @ohwilleke "security breach" is an approximate equivalent. I am not sure the OP is using the technical jargon correctly anyway - this looks like a vulnerability (the door to the warehouse is left open and unguarded) rather than an exploit (someone went through the open door, took stuff, and ran away). The OP has identified a vulnerability, but they did not use it in a practical manner.
    – KFK
    Sep 5 at 13:01

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No, but the organisation can be fined if they don't

Assuming the local government is a data controller, Article 24 requires that they:

  • Take into account the purpose, nature, context, and scope of any data processing activities.
  • Consider the likelihood of any severe risk to the freedoms and rights of any natural persons.
  • Implement appropriate organizational and technical measures and security measures that demonstrate that the data processing activities have been performed in accordance with GDPR regulation.
  • Review and update these measures where necessary.

Having a portal where a potential exploit can expose personal data to a hacker does not satisfy the bolded point.

Feel free to report them to your country's regulator.

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