At the request of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón and as part of an investigation into the theft of personal information, police in Michigan have detained Eugene Yu, the CEO of the software company Konnech.
With a five-year, $2.9 million contract with the City of Los Angeles, Yu’s business produces the software PollChief, which is used to oversee and compensate poll workers during elections.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office (LACDAO) claims that Yu was detained after investigations revealed that, contrary to contractual requirements, personal information provided to PollChief was held on servers in the People’s Republic of China.
The Register questioned the LACDAO about its claims that any data kept in China was actually viewed by outsiders or made accessible to them, as well as if any poll workers had complained about misuse of their personal data. Our query was acknowledged, but we haven’t heard anything back.
He stated in a statement that “data breaches are an ongoing menace to our digital way of life.” “When we give a business access to our private information, they must be willing and able to safeguard it against unauthorised use. We are all victims if not.”
Gascón claims that the probe is primarily focused on the personal identification information of election workers and not electoral fraud.
Gascón claims that the probe is primarily focused on the personal identification information of election workers and not electoral fraud.
He claimed that the purported behaviour in this instance had no bearing on the tabulation of votes and had no impact on the outcome of the election. But security is crucial for every election in order for everyone to have complete faith in the legitimacy of the voting process.
A request for comment from Konnech did not receive a prompt response.
Additional legal issues for Konnech
Last month, Konnech sued [PDF]. For allegedly defamatory racist and xenophobic assaults against Konnech and Yu that inaccurately depict the business, its founder, and group member Gregg Phillips of True the Vote, a Texas-based nonprofit that backs 2020 election denial.
The complaint claims that Konnech is a US corporation that was formed and run by a US person who has absolutely no connection to the Chinese Communist Party.
“Konnech never engages in any form of corruption or other illegal activities of any kind and only receives its contracts through open and transparent public government bidding procedures. The only protected machines in the United States are used to store all of Konnech’s US client data.”
The Michigan-based corporation referred to True the Vote as conspiracy theorists who are interested in making money off of allegations that the 2020 Presidential election was rigged.
According to the complaint, True the Vote falsely claimed to have gotten financial and other sensitive personal data, including social security numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, and banking information, from Konnech’s protected computers at an invitation-only event in August.
The developer emphasises that its software is used to manage poll workers and has nothing to do with the voting process. Additionally, it claims that True the Vote could only have obtained any of its data if the group had illegally hacked its computers, which is one of the accusations in the lawsuit.
True the Vote has never managed poll worker data for even a small portion of that alleged worker total, according to the lawsuit.
