[LINK] Centrelink staff sacked for privacy breaches

[Jan Whitaker]

At 08:48 AM 23/08/2006, Howard Lowndes wrote:
>I have a close friend that works in a branch of Centrelink and his ex 
>alleged that he was accessing her record inappropriately.  He was 
>exonerated but was counselled that he had not told Centrelink that his ex 
>was a Centrelink client when he was employed.

now that is weird! Does that mean that when one goes to work at CL that 
they need to tell them all their neighbours, friends, family etc who get CL 
benefits? That's just wrong.

My take on it as a result of ABC interviews in Melbourne this morning:

What isn't defined/mentioned but I heard in an interview locally of Mr Jongen:
- shouldn't it be "records actually being changed" *inappropriately* ?
- part of the issue was that staff were changing records of friends and 
relatives, sometimes at the request of those persons. Is that intrinsically 
wrong? How does Centrelink know if I'm friends with someone who works at CL 
who happens to get my phone call to update my information? that isn't 
fraudulent, although it may be considered suspicious
- there were 92 people who resigned. When asked if they were given an 
option of resign or be referred to the police, Jongen was careful not to 
answer that question
- when asked if people whose records were snooped or changed would be told, 
again no answer.
- we also aren't being told the range of implications of these breaches: 
should there be a published audit of the things done?

from BRD:
>I bet there are many systems out there, both in the public and private sector,
>that have all or nothing access controls - if you can access the system
>you can view anything.

It made me think back to my days in higher ed administration when I had 
access to all the student records in our college. Did I look? Of course I 
did, but not very often. I had privileges. And we weren't told not to. That 
was in the early days of computerisation of student information. And I feel 
bad now that I did that.

Jan


Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
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'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, there is 
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