NSW Fisheries Blooper

[Member]

If you have your email address listed with NSW Fisheries, (they ask on the license application) you would have received an email last Thursday from them.  What you probably didn't notice is that your email address, along with every other person on the mailing list, was visible.  You have to wonder what that list would be worth to a Spammer, or On-line tackle dealer.  There appologetic email below says that we do have recourse, but you have to wonder if it will include reimbursement for the time and cost of setting up a new email address or spam filter.  I'm in the unfortunate position of having given them my work email address, which was probably against the IT rules at work, and which will give the domain to some unscrupulous person.  I suppose the person responsible will get a little slap on the wrist and maybe even have to attend a meeting to discuss it.  They will conduct their own review of the error.  I'm sure the amount of bullsh!t involved in making a complaint will be tiresome, but I'm going to give it a shot just to vent my spleen a bit.

I refer to the Newscast email which was sent to yourself and a number of other Recreational fishing licence holders on the afternoon of Thursday 23 September 2010.

The address of each recipient was visible in the header of this email when it should have been ‘masked’ through being entered in the ‘bcc’ field. In these circumstances it may be considered your personal information was subject to unauthorised disclosure contrary to the Information Protection Principles of the Privacy & Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (PPIP Act).

When this breach of the PPIP Act became known on Friday morning action was taken to investigate the circumstances and review processes and procedures to ensure there are no recurrences. The initial indications are this was a human error in entering the address data in the wrong field.

Action is also being taken to remind managers and staff across the entire Industry and Investment NSW of their obligations and responsibilities in managing and protecting personal information.

On behalf of Industry & Investment NSW I apologise for any concerns arising from the disclosure of your personal information and assure you there will be no recurrences. Your co-operation in not forwarding or accessing any of the email addresses which were disclosed in error would be appreciated.

If you are aggrieved by the conduct of Industry & Investment NSW in this matter you may request an Internal Review under part 5 of the PPIP Act.

Part 5 Review of certain conduct

52   Application of Part
(1)  This Part applies to the following conduct:
(a)  the contravention by a public sector agency of an information protection principle that applies to the agency,
 (2)  A reference in this Part to conduct includes a reference to alleged conduct.

53   Internal review by public sector agencies
(1)  A person (the applicant) who is aggrieved by the conduct of a public sector agency is entitled to a review of that conduct.
(2)  The review is to be undertaken by the public sector agency concerned.
(3)  An application for such a review must:
(a)  be in writing, and
(b)  be addressed to the public sector agency concerned, and
(c)  specify an address in Australia to which a notice under subsection ( may be sent, and
(d)  be lodged at an office of the public sector agency within 6 months (or such later date as the agency may allow) from the time the applicant first became aware of the conduct the subject of the application, and
(e)  comply with such other requirements as may be prescribed by the regulations.

Any such application should be sent to the Manager Corporate Projects, Industry & Investment NSW  PO Box K220 Haymarket NSW 1240.


George Davey
Deputy Director-General, Primary Industries
Industry & Investment NSW


This message is intended for the addressee named and may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it and notify the sender. Views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, and are not necessarily the views of their organisation.

[Member]

My letter to them is:

Regarding:  Release of personal information





Dear Sir/Madam,

I am one of the many License holders whose personal information was recklessly released by your department.  I am very aggrieved that this situation could have occurred.  You have now given my contact details to every other person on your mailing list.  The application told me that the information I provided would be confidential and yet you have now provided many people with a very detailed mailing list to exploit.  Could you please advise me just how many people you have given my contact details to?  Is your department considering reimbursement to people affected by the blunder for the time and cost of installing additional spam filters, or changing of email addresses?  I suppose this failure in your systems will see a costly review process, and possible legal fees which will only serve to spend more money and reduce the amount spent on providing a fishery for law abiding recreational anglers.   
I will not be seeking any monetary compensation, however I do request that I be forever exempted from having to give my personal details to your department, and therefore exempt from holding a NSW Fishing License.  To again give you my personal details, knowing your disregard for the rules for confidentiality will cause me great stress, and the reason I fish is to relieve the stresses I have in my life.  I await your reply.


Sincerely,




…………………………..
Dale Sinclair

[Member]

Good luck with that mate.

You may be the only angler in Australia to not need a license!! 

Randall.

[Member]

Touche 

[Member]

Reply to everyone else who was on the email (& CC NSW Fisheries) seeking interested parties in a class action.

Also CC it to the Premiers Office, Leader of the Opposition & Fairfax.

Watch head roll then................

[Member]

Unfortunately I think I've deleted it now, coz it was on my work 'puter.  I'll check tonite if I sent it home though.  Good thinking Garry.  I really don't want monetary compensation, because it's just stealing the money from the fishery.

[Member]

Yeah I got it as well, wanna buy the list  - Then you can personally count how many people got your email address 

Personally I cant believe people are silly enough to give a primary email address for anything like that,  My ISP allows me 20 email addresses at a time which I can change myself, I change them often, Or you can just have a million online email addresses like hotmail, yahoo, gmail etc etc. Only very close friends have my primary email address (The one I check regularly and actually read)

It also allows me to know which mongrel sites are dealing in email addresses!! as soon as one address starts getting spammed I know exactly who is selling my info, and I delete the account and setup a new one.

I would hardly call what happened a breach of my privacy!

Bet the DG was happy, all the apologies went out under his name!

[Member]

Call me silly if you like, but I would have thought that it should be safe when you give it to a Government Department where they tell me it will be kept in the strictest confidence.  I'm not clever enough to keep a hundred different email addresses, and surprisingly, with only two that I've have for at least 4 years I receive zero spam.  I'm saying that they released my contact details to lots of different political groups, business groups, radical groups and who knows what else when I should be able to give them my contact details and be comfortable with that.  I suppose you keep a heap of bank accounts and only give the tax department the details for the one for your tax return to go into. 

[Member]

Now you'se can all send each other Christmas cards 
Cheers John.

[Member]

I suppose you keep a heap of bank accounts and only give the tax department the details for the one for your tax return to go into.

I wish!

Sounds like a lesson learnt for you then!

Have a look here for info on how to set yourself up with a few email addresses that you can toss away as soon as you start coping spam on them.  (Or the Govt gives them away for you!)
http://freebies.about.com/od/freeemailaccounts/Free_Email_Accounts.htm