Social security lottery prank likely to draw fine

Student who said he wanted to point out holes in the system could be in the hole to the tune of 25,000 kr

The national data protection agency has asked police to investigate an incident in which a student hacked the social security (CPR) numbers of several prominent political figures – including prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt (Socialdemokraterne) – and put them on a website for people to try and guess the last four digits of the numbers.

“When CPR numbers are published, we always investigate and it depends on the case whether or not we report it to the police,” Janni Christoffersen, the head of Datatilsynet told Jyllands-Posten newspaper. “This is not the first time we have done this.”

Christoffersen declined to comment on Søren Louv-Jansen's prank. He risks a fine of up to 25,000 kroner, but Christoffersen said similar violations had been punished by a fine of between 5,000 and 10,000 kroner.

Police said that there was no connection between Louv-Jansen's 'CPR number lottery' website and reports last week that hackers broke into police databases last year and were able to grab vast amounts of information, including CPR numbers.

The business and growth minister, Annette Vilhelmsen (Socialistisk Folkeparti), another of the lawmaker's whose CPR number reportedly had been stolen, said through a spokesperson that she was "worried" about the matter.

Louv-Jansen said he set up the website to raise awareness of just how easy it is to gain access to such information.

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