Pôle emploi, France’s government unemployment registration and financial aid agency, has suffered a data breach that exposed data belonging to 10 million individuals.
According to the press release, Pôle emploi became aware of the violation of the information system of one of its providers involving a risk of disclosure of personal data of job seekers.
Job seekers registered in February 2022, and former users of the job center are potentially affected by this theft of personal data.
The agency did not specify the number of impacted individuals, but Le Parisien reports an estimate of 10 million people to be impacted.
This is based on the fact that 6 million people had registered in one of Pôle emploi’s 900 job centers by February 2022, and another 4 million had done so in the previous 12 months prior to the attack, but their data hadn’t been deleted from the agency’s systems yet.
The exposed information includes full names and social security numbers, while email addresses, phone numbers, passwords, and banking data have not been affected by this data leak.
Pôle emploi advises registered job seekers to be cautious for any potential fraudulent activity.
A dedicated phone support line has been set up by the agency to address any questions and concerns that exposed individuals may have about the incident.
The agency reports that all its teams are now engaged in securing the data of job seekers and will continue to implement additional protection measures and procedures to prevent similar incidents from reoccurring in the future.
The agency has clarified that the incident does not impact its financial aid programs, and job seekers can access the online employment portal at “pole-employment.fr” using their passwords.
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