VIC government accused of failing duty to protect private data during pandemic

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A report by Victoria's privacy watchdog has found the state failed to protect people's personal data during the COVID pandemic -- and led to a case of attempted sexual assault.

Transcript

00:00 This was during that peak period of the COVID pandemic restrictions and a time when there

00:08 was an enormous amount of contact tracing. So the health department ended up contracting

00:14 out third party call centres to be able to help them manage that huge load that they

00:20 were facing. And Victoria's information commissioner says that he acknowledges the fact that this

00:25 was during a very difficult time for the state emergency departments here. However, he has

00:32 been investigating the misuse of personal information during that time, and says that

00:38 there were people that weren't properly screened before they gained employment. So some of

00:43 those pre-employment checks like police background checks that weren't done properly. In one

00:49 truly horrific case, a call centre worker who actually had a criminal history and was

00:54 out on bail at the time, managed to get the personal information of a young woman who

00:59 was isolating at home alone. And he then impersonated a health inspector to gain entry to her own

01:06 home and actually tried to force her to perform some sexual acts. We have heard from the commissioner

01:13 that this particular person had filled out that police background check application,

01:18 but it wasn't processed by the department at the time. And the Department of Health

01:23 itself says that it deeply regrets the situation, and it acknowledges the profound impact that

01:29 it particularly had on this young victim. But it says that it was right to focus all

01:34 of its attention on trying to contain COVID-19 at the time. The information commissioner

01:40 has made four recommendations to try to improve those practices of pre-screening for employment

01:48 in the future, because he says that it is going to happen again. We will have another

01:53 emergency or health emergency in the future. And he says that this shows just how difficult

01:59 it is to make large-scale adjustments in the middle of one of those. And so that's why

02:03 it's important that all agencies that might be involved in issues like this are fully

02:09 prepared and understand the risks.

02:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Category

Transcript

Recommended