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Australia's Asylum-Seeker Database Leaked

posted by Dopefish on Friday February 21 2014, @08:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the another-nope-from-down-under dept.

RobotMonster writes:

"The Guardian reports that a vast database containing the full names, nationalities, location, arrival date, and boat arrival information for a third of all asylum seekers held in Australia -- almost 10,000 adults and children -- had been inadvertently released by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in one of the most serious privacy breaches in Australia's history.

The disclosure of the database is a major embarrassment for the federal government, which has adopted a policy of extreme secrecy on asylum-seeker issues. As the department is likely to have breached Australia's privacy laws, it will be interesting to see what the repercussions are for the people who should be held responsible."

 
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  • (Score: 1) by SMI on Saturday February 22 2014, @07:26AM

    by SMI (333) on Saturday February 22 2014, @07:26AM (#4723)

    "If you have access to data, you have a responsibility to look after it."

    Well said. Now if we could just find a way to apply that to situations such as people giving away other people's information (without their knowledge or permission) to companies like Facebook... I'd like to see a law defining people's personal information as IP, with legal takedown capability and fines. After all, at least in the US, if someone calls a place of business looking for one employee, the only info that anyone else at the company can legally give out are the person's first name and the next time they are scheduled to work.

    I realize that legal takedowns and fines might very well be a slippery slope, but it seems, at least to me, that it would be a more balanced approach than what we have now.