Australian Information Security Incident Reported: April 24 2020

Australian Privacy Breach April 2020: Confidential details of entire WA Police Force accessed in ‘startling’ audit breach, CCC finds

A corruption investigation has revealed a staff member in the office that audits every WA government department accessed and downloaded highly confidential information about all of the state’s 8,800 police officers.

Source: Confidential details of entire WA Police Force accessed in ‘startling’ audit breach, CCC finds | ABC News (Australia)
More reports from: ABC News (Australia).

The information, dating back to 2015, included the officers’ names and addresses and was labelled a “startling” revelation by the state’s corruption watchdog.

The Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) tabled a report in State Parliament today outlining how the staff member at the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) stored the information on a spreadsheet on a laptop computer for years after completing an audit of the WA Police Force.

The report said there was no evidence the police data was shared, but that did not lessen the seriousness of the incident.

“The misconduct risk is real and its value to organised crime could be immense,” the report said.