A previous caseworker in Australia who was investigated above an alleged kid sexual abuse offense accessed the delicate information of vulnerable small children for a yr just after leaving their task.
The caseworker experienced been contracted by Victoria’s Department of Health and fitness and Human Solutions (DHHS) between April 2016 and September 2017 to function for a government system that aims to halt younger people today coming into out-of-home treatment.
An OVIC (Workplace of the Victorian Information Commissioner) report found that while employed by the DHSS, the caseworker experienced obtain to a governing administration personal computer program termed CRISSP, which outlets and manages documents linked to disability, family members, and youth guidance companies.
The worker’s access privileges to CRISSP, which should really have been revoked when they still left the function, were being not abrogated till October 2018, when the Section of Justice and Regulation identified that the employee experienced utilised CRISSP to perspective facts about previous and present-day clientele.
CRISSP entry logs discovered that the worker had accessed the details method devoid of authorization 260 times in between September 2017 and October 2018 and executed 150 searches. Among the info accessed by the employee was the personalized details of 27 people today.
The OVIC investigation found that each DHHS and the contracted support provider who had employed the former caseworker ended up in contravention of information and facts privacy ideas.
“Facts gathered to shield children basically cannot be allowed to endanger them—to enable this to transpire is not only a breach of privateness, but an unacceptable breach of have confidence in,” explained Victoria’s commissioner for children and youthful men and women, Liana Buchanan.
Following leaving the DHSS, the former caseworker started out a new position as a dwell-in mentor for a various youth providers company. Nonetheless, that job was terminated in February 2018 when law enforcement shared “major considerations” in excess of the individual’s obtain to “susceptible and at-risk youngsters” with the DHHS.
The OVIC report stated: “Victoria Law enforcement informed DHHS that [the worker]’s function notebook had been handed into a law enforcement station and, though making an attempt to find the owner, officers had identified boy or girl pornography on the notebook.”
Police were unable to demonstrate that the previous caseworker was connected to the little one sexual abuse content as the laptop experienced many person profiles.
Some parts of this article are sourced from:
www.infosecurity-magazine.com