A Senate Estimates Committee has heard that public servants and Telstra employees crawled over rubbish tips in search of computer files which included Ministerial emails that were ‘lost’ in a major security breach earlier this year.
The computer files were never recovered and are presumed by authorities to have been thrown out after being stored in a wheelie bin at Telstra Enterprise Service premises in Bruce (ACT). As a result, Canberra’s rubbish dumps hosted search parties as the Howard Government desperately sought to recover the files.
This major security breach affected four departments including Prime Minister and Cabinet; Communications, IT and the Arts (DCITA); Industry, Tourism and Resources; and Transport and Regional Services.
The missing files are the backup computer files for the month of March 2003, the month that Australia committed troops to Iraq.
According to DCITA, the files included sent and received emails, attachments to those emails, calendar details and contact lists. It also included all emails sent between ministerial offices and departments.
Telstra Enterprise Services has confirmed that it is uncertain how the back-up files disappeared, and that it has never recovered any of them. Telstra presumed they were thrown out with the rubbish.
The only sanction by the Howard Government was a nasty letter from the Secretary of PM&C to the CEO of Telstra.
This outrageous security blunder has exposed the Howard Government’s hypocrisy over security-related issues. Highly sensitive confidential emails have gone missing without an adequate explanation, and yet Telstra doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist.
This is not the action of a Government truly concerned with the details of effectively protecting Australia’s security.
Media contact: Jason Ives – (02) 6277 3334 or 0411 237 683
