Private medical records have been intercepted and posted online in Western Australia, raising alarm about the use of "insecure" paging services by government agencies.
Private medical records have been intercepted and posted online in Western Australia, raising alarm about the use of "insecure" paging services by government agencies.
The leaked data included the phone numbers and addresses of people in coronavirus quarantine, as well as transcripts of conversations involving paramedics, Department of Justice employees and school teachers, Nine News reports.
It's understood the website involved is no longer accessible.
The breach has been linked to a third-party pager service used by the Department of Health and operated by Vodafone.
In a statement, Vodafone said it encouraged customers not to use paging services to send sensitive information because they used legacy radio technology that was not able to be encrypted, unlike mobile phone networks.
"As soon as we became aware of a website illegally publishing paging messages, we took immediate action and had it shut down within hours," a spokeswoman said.
"We have also referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police and WA Police Force.
"The paging network operates separately to our mobile network that is secure and encrypted. There was no impact to our mobile network or mobile customers."
Australian Medical Association WA president Andrew Miller today said he was horrified by the use of the "amateurish" technology to handle the sensitive data.
"This is an extraordinary lapse of good care and governance, unfortunately, by a government department," Dr Miller told 6PR radio.
The Department of Health said in a statement it had immediately asked for the paging service to be stopped until the issue was addressed.
"Patient confidentiality is of utmost importance to the Department of Health, and it is dismayed that confidential information may have made it into the public domain," the statement said.
The department said it had reviewed its own hospital data systems and confirmed those systems remained secure.
A forensic audit of the leaked data will be undertaken by the department.
Opposition spokesman Tjorn Sibma said it was an appalling and avoidable breach of very sensitive information and called upon the government to take responsibility.
