Paul Malone, writing in the Canberra Times, catalogues recent abuses of personal data in government databases in Australia:

Tens of thousands of public servants have access to databases with information about you and me. In the Defence Department alone there more than 10,000 staff who are certified users of the personnel-management system that held the records of all Defence staff.

But it is in agencies such as Centrelink, the Australian Taxation Office and Medicare Australia – where records on the vast majority of Australians are held – that there is the potential for abuse that could affect any one of us.

The revelation this week that 585 Centrelink staff had been sanctioned for privacy violations, that 19 had been dismissed and 92 had resigned as a result brought the issue to the public’s attention.

But the Centrelink cases are not unique. Earlier this year it was revealed that the Child Support Agency had discovered 405 breaches of privacy, including 69 cases where sensitive information was given to former spouses.

In Medicare Australia, where 5400 staff are employed, over the past three years a total of 21 cases of privacy breaches, unauthorised access or fraud have been identified. Five staff were formally counselled, two demoted, eight resigned and six were terminated.

A further 13 cases are under investigation.

This entry was posted by andrew on Saturday, August 26th, 2006 at 23:45 and is filed under (In)security, Foreign Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.