Declaring that Chile does not protect its citizens' personal information, a hacker using the screen name "Anonymous Coward" recently published the private information of 6 million Chileans on two Web sites.

The data leak was first reported yesterday by the Chilean daily, El Mecurio [1].

Agence France Press reports [2]:

The personal data included names, street and email addresses, telephone numbers, social and educational background, and was taken from Education Ministry, Electoral Service and state-run telephone companies' websites...

According [3]to the Guardian, the breach was discovered early Saturday morning when the IT administrator of the Web site "FayerWayer [4]" discovered links on the site. The personal data was also published on the community Web site "ElAntro."

The information has been removed from both Web sites. No one knows when the personal information was published online. Police, however, continue to investigate the data leak.

Citing El Mecurio, the Associated Press reports [5]that the hacker committed the breach and the subsequent release of the data "to demonstrate how poorly protected the data in Chile is, and how nobody works to protect it."

The police say that as far as they know, the data leak did not include any banking or financial records, the Guardian noted .