Australian Information Security Incident Reported: April 23 2020

Australian Privacy Breach April 2020: Email bungle at Australian Traffic Network seeking jobkeeper payments exposes staff’s personal details

Names, addresses and birthdates of more than 100 people shared in privacy breach

Source: Email bungle at company seeking jobkeeper payments exposes staff’s personal details | The Guardian
More reports from: The Guardian.

The company responsible for delivering traffic reports on radio and TV stations across Australia accidentally sent out the dates of birth, names and home addresses of more than 100 current and former staff to potentially thousands of people as the company seeks to apply for the jobkeeper payments.

In an email to all staff Australian Traffic Network on Monday, which included a number of internal distribution lists and dozens of external email addresses, the company’s finance manager, Patrick Quinlan, asked staff to confirm whether they met the eligibility criteria for the jobkeeper payment.

The office of the Australian Information Commissioner had also been notified of the breach, he said.

“Today we have consulted our IT department to implement data loss prevention tools to reduce the likelihood of this happening again,” he said. “We have also restricted access to our payroll portal while we consider password protocols.”