The Australian government admitted to unintentionally sharing sensitive passenger information with one of the department’s consular clients. This data breach occurred on January 24th, in which passenger’s full name, gender, date of birth, email address, passport details (number, expiry, issuing country), Australian citizenship status, phone number, current location, and flight booking reference of those booked on the flight had been accidentally copied into an email and sent.
The Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) stated that it took “immediate action to mitigate any impact resulting from the inadvertent sharing of a flight manifest.” This included an attempt to recall the email within minutes of it being sent. A follow-up email was also sent, asking for the email to be deleted from the recipients IT system. Dfat claimed the email has been deleted by the receiving party, whoever the consular client remains unknown.
This followed the Emirate’s decision to suspend all flights from the UK from today. The Australian government, however, remains open to scheduling further repatriation flights.
