21-year-old arrested in matric marks leak

A company called Edumarks has been asking for R100 to send learners their matric results in advance of the official release. On Thursday, the person running Edumarks was arrested. Archive Photo: Tariro Washinyira / GroundUp

On Thursday morning, the serious economic offences unit of the HAWKS raided the premises of the owner of Edumarks. The Hawks identified and arrested a 21-year-old male, who is registered as the owner of the company. Various electronic gadgets and an unlicensed shotgun with ammunition were seized in the search. The suspect has been detained for the unlawful possession of a firearm.

On Monday, GroundUp reported on Edumarks, a company which offered to give NSC students their matric results up to seven days early for a fee of R100.

Investigations both by GroundUp and the Department of Basic Education indicated that these matric results may have been leaked through Universities South Africa (USAf).

When Edumarks began sending out authentic matric results, only the DBE and Universities South Africa had access to the marks.

USAf, formerly known as Higher Education South Africa, is a membership organisation representing all 26 of South Africa’s public universities. USAf is responsible for providing NSC results to these universities.

On 11 January at 4:06pm we had confirmation that the matric marks database was breached after Edumarks emailed us a student’s results. These marks were confirmed to be authentic by the Department of Basic Education.

It said USAf had received the results at 1:10pm. This was a mere three hours before Edumarks began emailing results.

The leak most likely occurred through one of the 26 registered public universities in South Africa. Media providers had only received the matric marks on the evening of 13 January and had signed strict embargo agreements.

Spokesperson for the education department, Elijah Mhlanga welcomed the latest developments as it indicates that the police are working hard on the issue.

In our own earlier investigation, we found that Edumarks emailed accurate results. However, the results were from January 2024 and did not reflect final updates after optional matric exam paper remarks, which are typically released in March. This means that Edumarks issues results from the original matric mark database that is sent out in January.

Edumarks advertised that they could send you matric results provided you matriculated from 2014 onwards. This implies that Edumarks has gained access to the past ten years of matric marks of students.

This article was originally published on GroundUp.

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