A GLITCH after this week’s nationwide Telstra outage resulted in a Perth business customer suddenly gaining access to several other businesses’ CCTV cameras, in another embarrassing bungle for the telco giant.

The Perth man, who did not want to be named, said he was “gobsmacked” by the serious privacy breach, which included being able to view the security cameras inside a day spa where women were walking around in towels.

A Telstra spokesman confirmed this bizarre incident was being investigated and was an isolated case nationally.

After Monday’s five-hour network blackout was fixed, the Perth business owner from the north-east industrial area said he was shocked when he checked the Telstra SNP security feed for his business on his phone and discovered he could not see his own premises, but unexpectedly had access to the CCTV cameras of four other random businesses in and around Fremantle.

Besides the day spa and hair salon, another of the businesses appeared to be a mechanic.

Camera Icon A screen shot of the feed the Perth business owner claims he received.

“It’s pretty bad, especially with a day spa ... I wouldn’t want my wife (to be put in that position),” the man said. “The first thing that came across my mind was how the hell have I got this? I don’t understand how this could be on my phone.

“How can this not be a serious breach of privacy? It makes me wonder if someone else is watching my cameras, because I can’t see them.”

The customer was left enraged after making an in-store complaint to Telstra on Friday, claiming he received a flippant response that the issue could not be addressed until Monday and that he would be charged for a technician to attend his business.

He said he paid about $1000 a month for the Telstra SNP Monitoring service, and though he was disillusioned with the telco after this debacle, there was not much he could do because he was locked into a contract.

The man said it appeared the CCTV feeds that were visible to him did not have a password attached to them, which underlined the importance of having such a basic measure in place.

Telstra branched into the surveillance and monitoring market in 2014 when it bought into the company, SNP Security.

A Telstra spokesman yesterday apologised for any inconvenience and said the issue was being investigated and it was working with the customer and Telstra SNP to resolve it as soon as possible.

He confirmed Telstra had not received any other reports of this nature in WA or any other State. He also said Telstra SNP would meet all the costs of fixing the issue.

Edith Cowan University associate dean for computing and security Paul Haskell-Dowland said the technical failing was alarming.

“In theory, this shouldn’t be possible ... and it’s hard to understand how it can happen,” he said. “I’m guessing that as the camera feeds come in, they must be associated with an account and somehow that information got mixed up.

“It’s a significant privacy issue ... we’ve certainly had plenty of issues in the past with home CCTV cameras, nanny cameras, being accessed by unauthorised individuals at other locations. It just demonstrates again that with the use of technology, and particularly when you’re putting your trust in a third party to secure your data, your video, you’ve got to think very carefully about the potential implications because this kind of thing can happen.”

Telstra’s outage on Monday was the latest in a string of network blackouts plaguing the company and its second this month. This week, it was revealed in State Parliament that 81 dangerous sex offenders and other serious criminals forced to wear GPS tracking devices as part of their release into the community went undetected in real time during Telstra’s two outages this month.

Attempts were made to contact some of the businesses affected.