AN ADMINISTRATIVE mistake had Kingston Council scrambling last week to apologise for a serious breach of ratepayers’ privacy.
The names, addresses, dates of birth and contact number for more than 2000 people who were asked to take part in a survey about Kingston’s maternal and child health services were mistakenly sent out in an email to residents who had used the services.
One of the recipients of a spreadsheet listing the personal information of 2112 clients is an ABC radio producer so the council privacy breach was quickly reported by the ABC last Thursday (17 November).
Kingston Council CEO John Nevins apologised to all families affected by the inadvertent release of the sensitive information.
“We acknowledge that this was an unacceptable privacy breach and are taking immediate action to determine how it occurred and to make sure it never happens again,” Mr Nevins said in a statement.
“We are working closely with the Privacy Commissioner and are set to appoint an independent expert to conduct a full investigation.”
The Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim, is a federal government appointed bureaucrat responsible for ensuring all levels of government handle data and information in an appropriate way.
“We will be keeping the families fully informed throughout this process,” Mr Nevins said.
It is understood an administrative mix-up led to an excel spreadsheet being accidentally included with an email containing the questionnaire sent out to prospective survey respondents.
No financial, medical or children’s details were included in the information mistakenly sent out by council.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 23 November 2016
