Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Loose slips

The Commonwealth Ombudsman Mr MacMillan has released a report into a review of information management, and the mishandling of a dossier of personal information compiled by an ACC employee - Mr X - on the now former Home Affairs minister, Bob Debus, which Mr X said was intended to assist his senior officer. The pdf of the O's report can be downloaded here.

The file was viewed by several ACC staff and then leaked to the media and the minister's office.

The Ombudsman said, ‘the review established that the Australian Crime Commission performs its intelligence gathering role in accordance with its legislation and that it does not appear to hold improper or unauthorised records.’

'The creation of the document in question was entirely inappropriate, but seems to have been an anomaly.

‘However, the ACC does need to improve the way it handles sensitive information.’

Despite the assurances of the Australian Crime Commission that other classified information is not leaked and has not been leaked about people not quite as prominent as a federal Home Affairs minister, the Ombudsman has recommended a number of procedural and policy changes to the elite security group's record keeping systems which at present potentially could permit open access among staff of many different security levels.




Mr MacMillan added that, ‘the ACC’s main record keeping database has a default that allows anybody to look at any record, unless the creator has remembered to change the setting to restrict access.’

Professor McMillan acknowledged the ACC’s recent efforts to build a culture of integrity and improve information handling and made six recommendations to assist, including that the ACC should:

  • develop an overarching information governance policy as a matter of high priority
  • review the guidance given to consultants in relation to the use of ACC information
  • develop a definition for unauthorised information access and enforce it
  • consider improving audit and incident reporting systems