Was your data in the COMELEC (Philippines Voters) breach?
Check whether your email address was in it
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COMELEC (Philippines Voters) (comelec.gov.ph) suffered a data breach in 2016 that exposed around 228,605 accounts. If you had an account, some of your personal data may be circulating in leaked databases. The fastest way to know is to check your own email — free, in about 30 seconds, no password required.
What happened
In March 2016, the Philippines Commission of Elections website (COMELEC) was attacked and defaced, allegedly by Anonymous Philippines. Shortly after, data on 55 million Filipino voters was leaked publicly and included sensitive information such as genders, marital statuses, height and weight and biometric fingerprint data. The breach only included 228k email addresses.
Breach record from Have I Been Pwned, CC BY 4.0. Risk analysis by Nullivo.
What was exposed, and why it matters
Not all breaches carry the same risk — what matters is which fields leaked. Here is what the COMELEC (Philippines Voters) breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
Also listed in this breach: Biometric data, Dates of birth, Email addresses, Family members' names, Genders, Job titles, Marital statuses, Names, Passport numbers, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Physical attributes.
What to do if you were affected
These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.
- Government identifiers
Consider a credit freeze or fraud alert with the credit reference agencies, and watch for accounts you did not open. - Home addresses
Get your address removed from data brokers — they re-list roughly every four months, so this needs repeating. - Dates of birth
Never confirm your date of birth to an inbound caller — hang up and dial the organisation back on a published number. - Phone numbers
Move two-factor authentication off SMS to an authenticator app or passkey, and add a port-out PIN with your mobile provider. - Names and usernames
Search your usual username to see what else it exposes, and use distinct handles for sensitive accounts. - Confirm you were actually in it
Run a free scan before you spend time on the steps above.
This breach put your details on data-broker sites
Because COMELEC (Philippines Voters) exposed home addresses, this is one of the breaches that feeds people-search and data-broker sites. Those sites scrape leaked databases, combine them with public records, and republish the result as a searchable profile — which is how a single breach turns into a permanent public listing. Removal works, but brokers typically re-list within about four months, so it has to be repeated.
See our broker-by-broker removal guides →
How urgent is this now?
This breach is over 10 years old. Old credentials still cause harm — leaked passwords from a decade ago are still tried against new accounts every day.
Remember: a breach can’t be “un-leaked” — once a database is out, it exists in countless copies. The goal is to make the leaked data useless: change what can be changed, lock down what can’t, and remove what has been republished.
Frequently asked questions
What data was exposed in the COMELEC (Philippines Voters) breach?
The COMELEC (Philippines Voters) breach exposed government identifiers, home addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, names and usernames, email addresses. The strongest identity-theft material there is — enough to open credit accounts or file fraudulent claims in your name.
How many people were affected by the COMELEC (Philippines Voters) breach?
Around 228,605 accounts were exposed, making it a mid-sized breach.
What should I do if I had a COMELEC (Philippines Voters) account?
Consider a credit freeze or fraud alert with the credit reference agencies, and watch for accounts you did not open. You can check whether your own email appears in this breach with a free Nullivo scan — no password required.
Breaches that exposed similar data
If the COMELEC (Philippines Voters) breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.