Chapter - 5065

"Miss, there is actually a very complicated underlying logic behind this matter," the old man said with a sigh after Maria asked her question.

"You tell me," Maria said.

"Whether it's the first or second method, the number of people who are hidden is actually not small," the old man explained. "Some special talents, military experts, intelligence personnel, and special agents have their identities encrypted. This adds up to tens of thousands of people. But the trouble is that for these two groups of hidden people, there is a database, but the vast majority of people who have access to this database do not have the highest level of authority to access it. That is to say, if I used one of these two methods to hide the information of two people, even if I have the authority to access this database, I can only access the information of those two people. I have no right to access the information of others, and I don't even know how many people are in this database. On the other hand, even if you also have the relevant authority to access this database, you wouldn't be able to find out who I have hidden in the database. We are isolated from each other, and there are multiple branches within the database, each with different levels and permissions. For example, the intelligence department's highest person in charge has the right to access all the information hidden in the intelligence department, but has no right to access other departments."

"Someone must have access to the entire database, right?" Maria asked, thinking about it.

"Miss, there are very, very few people with access, I can count them on one hand, and for these people, it is absolutely impossible for them to leak information to anyone who doesn't have access, so this path is currently out of my reach," the old man replied with an awkward smile.

"I understand," Maria nodded, knowing that starting with database access permissions was already an impossible task. After thinking for a long time, she suddenly remembered something and asked, "By the way, if a person's identity information wasn't hidden from birth, can we still find out the information before it was hidden?"

"If it's the first type of hidden information, where the person seems to have never existed in this world, then all the information about their birth will also be erased," the old man replied. "If it's the second type, it depends on how the person who is hiding their information operates. Some people may also erase all of it for certain purposes, but some people may not erase the previous information if they want to create the illusion that the person's whereabouts are unknown because this information still needs to be made public and available for people who are interested in it.

He continued, "For example, if a person graduates from college at the age of 22 and needs to disappear for some reason, their file information before the age of 22 will not be erased. Only a missing person or deceased label will be added to their file, and this information will not be encrypted. Even an ordinary police officer with the lowest level of authority, who is connected to the population system, can easily find out information on their file before they would have disappeared."

Maria's eyes lit up and she asked, "Does the information you just gave me include missing Charlie Wade?"

"It includes missing people, but not those who have been confirmed deceased," the old man replied.

Maria realized that she had indeed seen a lot of information about small children just now, but had skipped over them and not looked carefully at their specific information. However, she had overlooked the possibility that the photo of a small child may not be their current state if they had disappeared when they were too young and their profile information was still stuck at their young age, not updated.

So she hurriedly said to the old man, "I'll go over the missing person's information first, and if I still can't find it, you can help me retrieve the information about deceased individuals.

The old man nodded. "No problem!"

Maria looked at the laptop again and the list returned to the first person, going through them one by one. Soon, a black and white photo appeared in front of her eyes, causing her pupils to snap.

The boy in the photo looked about six or seven years old and was handsome, with features and charm that made Maria feel slightly familiar. She looked at the boy's information and muttered, "Charlie Wade, a native of Eastcliff, the son of Bruce Wade and Lily Evans... Charlie Wade attended Eastcliff Second Experimental Primary School twenty-one years ago, transferred to Aurous Hills First Primary School twenty years ago, and then disappeared. His file information was never updated again..."