PM Vanhanen to renew his passport because of Czech Republic data leak

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Finland’s Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre Party) reported on Monday during his trip to China that he would be renewing his passport because of the recent Czech Republic data leak.
      “A passport number by itself is quite harmless, but someone might still come up with some sort of misuse for it”, Vanhanen commented to the Finnish News Agency STT.
     
On Friday of last week, the flight details and passport numbers of around 200 EU leaders, including those of a Finnish state delegation, were found on a public access computer in a Prague hotel.
      The breached information contained for example details of the Finnish President Tarja Halonen, Prime Minister Vanhanen, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb (Nat. Coalition), among many other top European Union representatives.
      The misplaced list related to a recent EU-US summit held in Prague and attended by U.S. President Barack Obama.
     
Officials in the Czech Republic, the current holder of the EU Presidency, have launched an investigation into the cause of the embarrassing data seepage.
      On Monday the Czech government issued an apology over the incident on its EU Presidency website.


Links:
  Czech Presidency of the EU Press Release

Helsingin Sanomat