Chile probes data theft and posting by hacker

Deputy Telecommunications Minister Pablo Bello said the government is drafting legislation to improve protection of personal data. He did not elaborate.

Government agencies played down the significance of the breach.

The head of the Electoral Service, Juan Garcia, said the information from his agency that appeared on the Internet was not confidential but available to the public upon request.

"Our database is intact, secure and protected," he said.

The army said the hacker disclosed information pertaining to 8,919 youths out of 146,593 who have registered for military service.

The Education Ministry described its data as a list of credentials for students to get low fares for public transportation and university applications.

The leaked data includes around 2 million telephone numbers. There was no immediate comment from telephone companies.