Data breaches → Master Deeds
Was your data in the Master Deeds breach?
2017 · ~2,257,930 accounts exposedCritical severity · 10/10
Master Deeds suffered a data breach in 2017 that exposed around 2,257,930 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 2017, a 27GB database backup file named "Master Deeds" was sent to HIBP by a supporter of the project. Upon detailed analysis later that year, the file was found to contain the personal data of tens of millions of living and deceased South African residents. The data included extensive personal attributes such as names, addresses, ethnicities, genders, birth dates, government issued personal identification numbers and 2.2 million email addresses. At the time of publishing, it's alleged the data was sourced from Dracore Data Sciences (Dracore is yet to publicly confirm or deny the data was sourced from their systems). On 18 October 2017, the file was found to have been published to a publicly accessible web server where it was located at the root of an IP address with directory listing enabled. The file was dated 8 April 2015.
Breach details sourced from Have I Been Pwned, the industry-standard breach database. 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 Master Deeds breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
The strongest identity-theft material there is — enough to open credit accounts or file fraudulent claims in your name.
Special-category data under UK/EU GDPR. Exposure can lead to discrimination, extortion or targeted harassment, and cannot be undone.
Home addresses feed people-search and data-broker sites, which republish them publicly. They also make phishing far more convincing and, in the worst cases, enable real-world harassment.
Date of birth is a permanent identifier used to verify identity by phone. Combined with a name and address it is often enough to impersonate you.
Enables SIM-swap attacks (hijacking your number to intercept SMS codes), smishing, and voice scams that appear to come from your bank.
Links this leak to your other accounts — a reused username lets anyone build a profile of you across platforms.
Puts you on spam and phishing lists, and confirms to attackers that you hold an account with this service — which makes impersonation emails more believable.
Also listed in this breach: Dates of birth, Deceased statuses, Email addresses, Employers, Ethnicities, Genders, Government issued IDs, Home ownership statuses, Job titles, Names, Nationalities, Phone numbers, Physical addresses.
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.
- Sensitive personal characteristics: Under UK/EU GDPR you have a strong right to erasure here — exercise it with the service and with any site republishing the data.
- 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.
- Check whether your own email appears in this breach — run a free scan to confirm before you spend time on the steps above.
This breach put your details on data-broker sites
Because Master Deeds exposed sensitive personal characteristics and 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 9 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 Master Deeds breach?
The Master Deeds breach exposed government identifiers, sensitive personal characteristics, 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 Master Deeds breach?
Around 2,257,930 accounts were exposed, making it a large breach.
What should I do if I had a Master Deeds 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 Master Deeds breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.
- Was your data in the University of California breach? (2020, ~547,422 accounts)
- Was your data in the Exactis breach? (2018, ~131,577,763 accounts)
- Was your data in the JobStreet breach? (2012, ~3,883,455 accounts)
- Was your data in the Verifications.io breach? (2019, ~763,117,241 accounts)
- Was your data in the DC Health Link breach? (2023, ~48,145 accounts)
- Was your data in the Tappware breach? (2024, ~94,734 accounts)