KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er

@guardian.co.tt

Even as pub­lic pres­sure mount­ed for ac­tion against the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) ex­ec­u­tive in the wake of the breach that led to a da­ta dump of cus­tomer files on the dark web, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les yes­ter­day said he did not have the pow­er to re­move any­one, in­clud­ing CEO Lisa Agard.

As the scope of the cy­ber­at­tack, which saw 1.2 mil­lion cus­tomers’ da­ta dumped on the dark web, con­tin­ued to widen yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said it is al­so not his du­ty to force any­one to re­sign.

“That is not my call. That is not my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. I ex­pect the board to do what it has to do to en­sure that it man­ages, in this very tur­bu­lent time in the or­gan­i­sa­tion, and they do what they must to en­sure that there is an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in the mat­ter and that that in­ves­ti­ga­tion is not in­ter­fered with by any op­er­a­tives in­side of TSTT,” Gon­za­les said.

“I have giv­en the board, through the chair­man, firm in­struc­tions to en­sure that what­ev­er has to be done to en­sure a firm, fair, thor­ough, in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this mat­ter, in the pub­lic’s in­ter­est, that their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to en­sure that hap­pens ... I feel a sense of com­fort that based on what was re­vealed to me, that the ef­fort they are mak­ing to en­sure that fair in­ves­ti­ga­tion goes on unim­ped­ed.”

Gon­za­les said the in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter will in­clude the com­mu­ni­ca­tions which took place when he first in­quired about the leak and was told there was none.

How­ev­er, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union boss Clyde El­der has called for Agard and Chief Fi­nan­cial Of­fi­cer (CFO) Shi­va Ram­nar­ine to be fired be­fore the start of any probe, say­ing he fears they may in­ter­fere with the ex­er­cise.

Last month, ru­mours be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing of a pos­si­ble breach of TSTT’s da­ta. How­ev­er, Gon­za­les pub­licly de­nied that this was true.

Last Fri­day, how­ev­er, TSTT ad­mit­ted that a cy­ber­at­tack did, in fact, take place on Oc­to­ber 9 but as­sured its cus­tomers that their cur­rent da­ta is still safe.

Nev­er­the­less, cus­tomers’ per­son­al da­ta, in­clud­ing iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card num­bers, pass­port num­bers, banks ac­count in­for­ma­tion and PO Box ad­dress­es were leaked in the da­ta dump.

Yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les ad­mit­ted that he did not get prop­er in­for­ma­tion from TSTT ini­tial­ly.

“When I first re­spond­ed that it (breach) was not so, it was based on what I was told, that there was no cy­ber­breach or breach of cus­tomers da­ta at that point in time. Of course, I was re­spond­ing based on in­for­ma­tion that was re­layed to me by the au­thor­i­ty,” Gon­za­les said.

De­spite this, Gon­za­les still with­held the iden­ti­ty of the per­son or per­sons from TSTT who told him oth­er­wise.

“Of course, I will not say who ad­vised me of that and that is the rea­son why I in­voked my au­thor­i­ty as Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties to or­der that an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion be done in­to this mat­ter,” he added.

Prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s per­son­al in­for­ma­tion was among the da­ta leaked. He has since urged those in­volved to get to the bot­tom of the breach.

Gon­za­les said Row­ley told him that this mat­ter should be brought to the at­ten­tion of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Asked what sound ad­vice he had re­ceived from the Prime Min­is­ter on the breach, Gon­za­les said, “How to man­age in these dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances, and, of course, I can­not di­vulge but he did pro­vide some in­for­ma­tion and ad­vice as to how it should be treat­ed at the high­est lev­el to en­sure that the pub­lic’s in­ter­est of know­ing and get­ting to the bot­tom of it is pre­served and that no one in­ter­feres in the process and that it re­ceives even the fullest at­ten­tion of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The min­is­ter added, how­ev­er, that he ex­pects TSTT will face the pub­lic soon to de­liv­er an up­date on the mat­ter.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to CEO Agard yes­ter­day but she did not re­spond to calls or mes­sages.