Privacy commissioner tells Senate inquiry of plan after minister Alan Tudge sent details of welfare claimant to journalist

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A new privacy code will be developed for Australia’s public service in the wake of Centrelink’s “robo-debt” debacle, it was announced on Thursday.



An investigation is also being restarted to figure out how the minister for human services, Alan Tudge, was able to send internal departmental briefings to a journalist about a welfare recipient’s personal circumstances.

Timothy Pilgrim, the Australian privacy commissioner, said the new privacy code will be developed for Australia’s public service, with help from Martin Parkinson, the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, to be implemented in 2018. He made the announcement on Thursday, during the final day of public hearings in a Senate inquiry into Centrelink’s automated debt recovery system.

Centrelink debt furore: police won't investigate release of welfare recipient's data Read more

Pilgrim said he will also be auditing the Department of Human Services (DHS), which oversees Centrelink, in the 2017-18 financial year, in relation to its controversial data-matching program and online compliance intervention (OCI) system.

He said there were “privacy issues that warrant monitoring by me” including whether the DHS

“has taken reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of personal information used in the data-matching and debt recovery process, and whether individuals have had a reasonable opportunity to correct their personal information.”

Last month Australia’s ombudsman released the results of a three-month investigation of Centrelink’s debt recovery system.

The acting commonwealth ombudsman, Richard Glenn, found the system was capable of accurately calculating debts if provided with accurate information, and said it was reasonable to use data-matching to identify discrepancies in reported income. But he also found a litany of flaws in the system’s design, saying it placed an often unreasonable burden on welfare recipients to provide the information needed to disprove debts.

Pilgrim also he would also restart his investigation into the unsolicited release of personal information belonging to a welfare recipient who had been publicly critical of Centrelink’s debt recovery program.

Blogger Andie Fox had written an opinion piece critical of Centrelink and its handling of her debt, which ran in Fairfax Media in February.

To counter the accuracy of her claims, her information was then released to Fairfax Media journalist, Paul Malone, who subsequently published a piece attacking Fox and questioning the veracity of her claims.

Malone received two responses, one from the Department of Human Services and another from the minister, Alan Tudge.

Tudge’s response included additional quotes and mistakenly attached two briefings, marked “for official use only”, which contained additional details about Fox.

Pilgrim says now that the federal police have advised they won’t take any action against Tudge, he has restarted his inquiries with DHS about the release of Fox’s personal information. “They’ve been cooperating and responding to my questions,” Pilgrim said.

“I’ve already received some responses to specific questions and we’re working through those at the moment.”