Vodafone breached Privacy Act

The Privacy Commissioner has cleared Vodafone of allegations that it allowed the private information of four million customers to be made public.

Vodafone did breach the Privacy Act by failing to take reasonable steps to protect customers' data.

It was claimed that billing and call records were available on a publicly accessible website protected only by a password.

It is a timely reminder for other large organisations using customer management systems to check they do not breach the Privacy Act and open the way for identity fraud.

Vodafone chief executive has acknowledged improvements need to be made and says information security has been tightened and action taken with staff who shared passwords.

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