Late yesterday, it emerged that Aussie officials had leaked the confidential details of dozens of world leaders in the lead-up to the G20 conference, not by any nefarious means, but because some bloody genius failed to check the autofill function in Microsoft Outlook.
Australia: the Jerry Barry Terry Larry Garry Gergich of the international communtiy.
Fairfax report personal information for 31 world leaders, including dates of birth, passport numbers, visa grant numbers and visa subclasses, were inadvertently emailed to organisers of the Asian Cup soccer tournament.
US President Barack Obama was among those affected, along with Chinese President Xi Jingping, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The cluster-whoops occurred before world leaders arrived in Australia for the G20, and though it was reported to the Privacy Commissioner and then-Immigration Minister Scott Morrison at the time, it’s only coming to light now.
The Office of the Australian Communications Commissioner’s privacy guidelines say that affected individuals must be notified in the event of a breach that could give rise to “a real risk of serious harm.”
In this case, however, the Immigration Department opted not to inform any of the world leaders involved, blaming the breach on “human error” and that there was nothing “systematic” about it.
Also, like an errant dick pic, sent to the wrong recipient on a night of drunken reverie, Asian Cup officials promised that they deleted the information in question immediately after receiving it, so no big deal, right …?
The situation was only recently uncovered, when Guardian Australia lodged a freedom of information request for the correspondence involved, and The US, being fairly tetchy about national security and whatnot, are now all over the situation.
ABC News report that, during a briefing on Air Force One, White House Press Secretary Erik Schultz told reporters that the leak would be investigated.
“I can tell you that we’re looking into them and we’ll take all appropriate steps necessary to ensure the privacy and security of the president’s personal information,” Schultz said.
At minimum, we probably won’t be getting any more Presidential visits any time soon.
Photo: Mandel Ngan via Getty Images
