Former privacy commissioner says those affected by breach ‘would be well-advised to seek legal advice’

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A former privacy commissioner has warned “we’re in class action territory” after people’s personal details were revealed in an unprecedented document dump by the Victorian parliament.

The personal details of a lawyer that were revealed in the release have since been removed from the parliament’s website but there are no guarantees more privacy breaches won’t occur.

The Andrews Labor government tabled about 80,000 pages of documents on Monday relating to opposition leader Matthew Guy’s botched rezoning of farming land near Ventnor at Phillip Island when he was planning minister between 2011 and 2013.

Andrews government's release of unredacted Matthew Guy documents condemned Read more

Guy used his ministerial powers to intervene and rezone the land, then rescinded the decision a week later following community backlash. He then signed off on a $2.5m confidential settlement, plus costs, with the buyer of the land, despite only receiving cabinet approval for a lower settlement.

Among the documents were personal details of a lawyer including her mental health, financial and familial details, which have now been removed. The home addresses and contact numbers of other private individuals and documents related to other court cases were also released.

The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, told the ABC the release of private information was “unfortunate and inadvertent” but the focus should remain on Guy’s decision to approve the multimillion-dollar settlement.

The leader of the government in the lower house, Jacinta Allan, who moved the motion to seek parliament’s approval to release the documents in March, accused the opposition of combing through the documents in order to find personal information to feed to the media.

On Tuesday, a government spokesman told Guardian Australia that: “Given the volume of documents tabled, it would have been impossible to both make the redactions and comply with the parliamentary direction.”

There is no formal requirement to redact documents requested by parliament.

Former privacy commissioner David Watts told 3AW that those people whose details were revealed should seek legal advice.

“I think we’re in class action territory,” he said. “It is not a minor breach, those affected would be well-advised to seek legal advice on how best to prosecute this through the courts.

“Once your privacy has been breached, you can never, ever have it returned to you. There have been substantial settlements made in Australia. The matters rarely get to court to be decided because they usually settle, and some of those settlements can be really, really substantial.”

The police minister, Lisa Neville, warned media against republishing personal details that were originally published in the unredacted documents tabled in parliament, drawing the ire of a News Corp journalist who said that they, unlike the government, de-identified the information.

Tom Minear (@tminear) Lisa Neville calls on the Opposition to tell the Speaker if they know of more personal information contained in Ventnor document dump. She’s warning against the media publishing details - even though journalists are de-identifying the information to reveal breaches. #springst

The government earlier this week urged media to thoroughly peruse the documents.

“This disgusting debacle is a snapshot into the premier’s soul,” Guy told reporters before parliament on Thursday. “There is no Victorian he won’t hurt in order for his reckless pursuit of power to be his primary goal.

“There are only seven of 32 boxes we have gone through. God knows what other private and personal data on Victorians is now tabled for every Victorian to read in Hansard.”

The treasurer, Tim Pallas, described the breach as “minor” but could not guarantee more details unrelated to the Ventnor dump would not be uploaded.

“We’ve taken our best efforts to ensure that this data has been adequately protected and ultimately you have to make a choice – is this in the public’s interest this entire material be made public so they can ascertain it?” Pallas said.

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The deputy premier, James Merlino, told 3AW radio the documents tabled to parliament unknowingly included confidential details.

“The inclusion of these personal details were inadvertent and as soon as we were notified we asked for them to be removed from the public domain,” he said.

Integrity experts and open government campaigners have condemned the release as “ill-thought out” and “somewhat irresponsible”.

The government is expected to use its majority in the lower house to condemn Guy's actions in parliament on Thursday.