Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

Argentina hack reveals data on thousands of Swiss travellers

Swiss passports
Thousands of Swiss passport holders have had their personal details made public. © Keystone / Christian Beutler

Some 11,000 Swiss citizens have had their data illegally made public by Argentinian hackers after blackmail demands were not met. The hackers published passport data of tens of thousands of people worldwide.

Swiss public broadcaster SRF reports that the data was hacked from the Argentinian immigration office. The thieves published reams of personal data on the Darknet – an underground version of the internet – because the authorities refused to meet their ransom demands.

The data includes names, dates of birth, passport numbers and travel destinations of a multitude of people who had travelled to Argentina between January and mid-March. The list is also believed to contain some 12,000 Germans, including diplomats, and citizens of Israel and France.

The Swiss foreign ministry told SRF that it was aware of the ransom attack and was in contact with the Argentinian authorities.

According to research by the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation, the hackers had demanded some $4 million (CHF3.6 million) to stop the data from being published.

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

films

More

Swiss films made their mark abroad in 2024

This content was published on Several Swiss films exceeded the 100,000 admissions mark worldwide in 2024 and received widespread praise at international film festivals.

Read more: Swiss films made their mark abroad in 2024

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR