New Zealand's High Court has ruled that cloud storage website Mega must hand over a slew of sensitive users' information to the Kazakhstan government.
Photo: 123RF
Kazakhstan is pursuing the source of a colossal hack of confidential emails by high-ranking government officials to a newspaper, Respublika, which is accused of extremism and is banned after criticism of the government.
IP addresses, email addresses, contact information and payment information of some users can now be sent to a court in New York after the High Court ruling.
Mega had hoped to limit what was handed over to Kazakhstan, arguing that it was an unnecessary breach of privacy.
The New Zealand ruling accepted the information was essential to identify some of the 100 unnamed defendants, thought to be the hackers, targeted in civil proceedings in New York.
Dissident journalist Guzyal Baydalinova, accused of distributing leaked information in a separate case, was jailed in Kazakhstan in May, just a few days after the High Court in Auckland first ordered Mega to turn over the information.
She has since been released.
