Update on the ANTS breach we covered April 22: French police detained a 15-year-old on April 25, suspected of running the breach3d alias and stealing data from France Titres (ANTS), the agency that issues French ID cards, passports, and driver's licenses. The Paris Prosecutor's Office charged the minor on April 29 with three offenses carrying up to seven years in prison. ANTS now confirms 11.7 million accounts affected - lower than the original 19 million claim but still one of the largest leaks of French citizen identity data ever. Exposed data includes full names, email addresses, dates of birth, postal addresses, and phone numbers.
France Titres (Agence nationale des titres securises, ANTS), the French government agency responsible for issuing driver's licenses, national ID cards, passports, and immigration documents, has confirmed a security incident on the ants.gouv.fr portal. The agency detected the compromise on April 15 and published an acknowledgment April 20, saying individual and professional account data may have been exposed. On April 16, a threat actor using the alias 'breach3d' claimed responsibility on a hacker forum, alleging theft of up to 19 million records. The attacker says the stolen data contains full names, contact details, birth data, home addresses, account metadata, gender, and civil status. ANTS operates under the French Ministry of the Interior and is the authoritative source for official French identity documents, making any data leak a foundational risk for downstream phishing, social engineering, and identity fraud. The agency has notified France's data protection authority (CNIL), the Paris Public Prosecutor, and national cybersecurity agency ANSSI. ANTS is telling users no action is required but to exercise 'extreme caution' with any SMS, phone calls, or emails claiming to come from the agency - the stolen data is ideal raw material for targeted impersonation scams.