88 ID Verification Breaches Show the Cost of Collecting Identity Data
A report catalogs 88 ID-verification breaches since 2011 exposing at least 2.15 billion records, with 41 incidents leaking irreplaceable biometric data and documents.
A Mysterium VPN report compiles 88 documented breaches since 2011 involving identity and age-verification data, with confirmed exposure of 2.15 billion records and claimed totals of 4.54 billion. In 41 of 88 incidents, ID scans, verification selfies, fingerprints, and biometric templates leaked, data that cannot be changed after exposure. Notable cases include the Tea app's exposed selfies, Discord's ~70,000 government IDs, vendor failures at AU10TIX, Sumsub, and Persona, and national registry breaches in Argentina (45 million records) and France (11.7 million people).
Sophisticated Cyberattack Exposes Data of 678,000 French Taxpayers
Hackers stole personal and tax data of 678,000 individuals and businesses from France's tax agency DGFiP, prompting a Paris criminal investigation.
France's Directorate-General for Public Finances (DGFiP) confirmed a sophisticated cyberattack exposed data on 678,000 users of the tax system, including income figures, tax rates and family circumstances for individuals and SIREN registration data for businesses. The Paris prosecutor's cybercrime unit opened a probe and referred it to the French anti-fraud office OFAC after a threat actor claimed the breach in late June. Officials stressed the stolen data does not grant access to secure accounts on impots.gouv.fr, and taxpayer notification begins Monday with warnings about identity theft and fraudulent follow-up requests. The incident follows recent breaches at the ANTS documents agency and the INSEE statistics authority.
France investigates tax authority breach after hacker claims 600,000 victims
France's tax authority DGFiP confirmed hackers extracted data on individuals and businesses; a hacker claims more than 600,000 victims.
France's Economy Ministry said an attacker gained unauthorized access to DGFiP systems in late June by stealing or misusing someone's identity, viewed and extracted data, and was cut off after detection. A hacker using the alias ZeroBytes claimed via FrenchBreaches to have taken data on over 600,000 people, including names, tax identification numbers, emails, family circumstances and tax status; the claim is unverified. The DGFiP will notify affected individuals, report to France's data protection authority and file a criminal complaint. It follows other 2026 breaches at ANTS, the Education Ministry and the National Bank Accounts File.