Surge in MATSEC result checks caused e-ID outage, MITA says
An SMS and email that were sent to students were the culprits
A surge in students attempting to access their MATSEC results simultaneously caused the disruption to the government’s e-ID service, Malta’s IT agency said on Tuesday evening.
In a statement, MITA said the spike followed MATSEC’s distribution of an SMS and email containing a direct link to its results portal.
A “significantly higher-than-anticipated” number of users then tried to log in at the same time, generating an exceptional volume of authentication requests.
The disruption affected several government websites that require e-ID authentication, including the MATSEC portal, myHealth, eCourts, the Planning Authority and the Malta Business Registry. Users attempting to log in were met with a message saying the web server was down.
The outage lasted around five hours and coincided with the release of SEC and matriculation examination results, leaving some students unable to access their results online. Results were still being sent by SMS.
MITA said some users experienced temporary delays, interruptions or difficulties logging in before its technical teams implemented mitigation measures and increased system capacity.
The situation has since stabilised, with users successfully accessing the affected services, the agency said.
It added that it would continue monitoring the system and take further action where necessary to maintain its availability and performance.
During the outage, Education Minister Byron Camilleri told parliament that MITA was prioritising the restoration of the MATSEC portal because thousands of students were waiting for their results.
He acknowledged the disappointment caused to students after months of preparation, while saying the wider e-ID outage did not fall under his ministry’s remit.
PN education spokesperson Jerome Caruana Cilia described the situation as “unacceptable”, saying students had been left in limbo because of the system failure.
MITA thanked the public, particularly students and their families, for their patience and understanding.