Page 2842 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 11 October 2022
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homes to over 20,000 Canberrans. With the Common Ground Dickson, development the ACT government is committed to delivering on the ACT strategy and the Parliamentary and Governing Agreement to decrease homelessness and increase the support for social and affordable housing across the housing spectrum.
Cybersecurity—Optus data breach
MR COCKS: My question is for the Minister for Business and Better Regulation. Minister, the ACT is refusing to replace the majority of compromised drivers licence numbers through the Optus hack, as our ID verification system requires both a licence number and a card number. Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania all use the same ID verification system as the ACT yet are offering to replace all compromised licence numbers. Minister, why won’t you apply the same standard of data security as Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania?
MS CHEYNE: The Optus breach has obviously been incredibly concerning for many Canberrans. Can I take this moment to thank Access Canberra for its very hard work over a considerable period of time in what has already been a very busy period, to support Canberrans who have had data exposed, especially where it has related to ACT government issued forms of identification, such as driver licences.
I can confirm what Mr Cocks refers to—there being two fields being released by Optus, and that being where there is the greatest cause for concern. Where that has been the case, that is where we are replacing the driver licence card number for the person and issuing them a new diver licence card. This is exactly the same as it is in New South Wales. Indeed, the advice that Optus has provided for customers in Western Australia and South Australia, for example, as far as I am aware, and I will double check this, is similar.
All that said, if there are Canberrans who still remain concerned and wish to have their driver licence replaced, even if they have only had one field exposed during the breach, they can still, of course—any Canberran can do this—apply to have their driver licence card replaced. They are not the highest priority for us, because we think the risk is much lower for those people, and they are not being supported through Optus in terms of the cost being credited. (Time expired.)
MR COCKS: Minister, is the ACT government letting down the significant number of Canberrans who work in secure and secret industries, by not ensuring the highest level of data security?
MS CHEYNE: I thank Mr Cocks for the question, but no, absolutely not. The ACT government takes the security of information incredibly seriously, and the team at Access Canberra has been working incredibly hard with Optus, with other state and territory governments, and with the commonwealth government in understanding the extent of what has been exposed. Again, Mr Cocks might like to reflect that his imputation is drawing in the New South Wales Liberal government, which has taken the exact same approach as we have.
We take identity and security very seriously. It is one of the reasons that we are partnered with the Document Verification Service. It does require both of those data
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