Electoral Commission cyber-attack

09 Aug 2023

The Electoral Commission has published a statement following a cyber-attack on its system.

The Electoral Commission statement confirms that “hostile actors” were able to access copies of the electoral register which are held by the Commission. This includes the name and address of anyone in the UK who was registered to vote between 2014 and 2022 and the names of those registered as overseas voters, but not the details of those registered anonymously. 

Electoral registers are held and maintained by Electoral Registration Officers for each local authority area, including West Suffolk, and, by law, we are required to provide a copy of the names and addresses of those on our electoral register to the Electoral Commission each year. It is the Electoral Commission system that has been subject to the cyber-attack. West Suffolk Council’s systems, and the electoral register, are unaffected and we continue to register people to vote in the normal way. 

The incident is now subject to an investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Commission has published a frequently asked questions document with information regarding the breach and the public can also contact the Commission directly by using this webform and selecting the title ‘Cyber-attack’ to get in touch.

 

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