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The Election Commission (EC) has temporarily suspended its National Identity Card (NID) server amid fears of a possible cyberattack, officials said on Wednesday.
Officials of the EC’s NID Wing confirmed the suspension on October 28, saying its technical team was working to address the issue and restore the service as soon as possible.
Muhammad Ashraf Hossain, system manager of the NID Wing, told the media that the technical team was working on the matter.
“The technical team is working. The server will be brought back online as soon as the work is completed,” he said.
The temporary shutdown could disrupt access to NID-related online services, including identity verification and the delivery of services by organisations that rely on the national identity database, depending on the scope of the suspension.
The NID database is a key component of Bangladesh’s digital public service infrastructure. It is used for identity verification in various government and private-sector services, including banking, financial transactions and mobile phone registration.
A temporary suspension can affect institutions that depend on online verification, although the extent of any disruption was not immediately clear.
The EC did not disclose whether it had detected an actual cyberattack, identified a specific threat or taken the server offline as a precautionary measure. Officials also did not provide a specific timeline for restoring the service.
The server is expected to resume operations after the technical team completes its work, according to the NID Wing’s system manager.