The 132,000 clients had requested their cellphone numbers not be made publicly obtainable, however an inner error meant the numbers have been, Telstra Chief Financial Officer Michael Ackland has defined.
He has advised Today that 16,000 of these clients had their cellphone numbers revealed within the on-line model of the White Pages listing.
“The balance of the 132,000 were not available online, but were available on directory assistance, which is a service where you call 1234 and you can ask for the phone number of an individual person,” he defined.
Ackland stated the info breach was found throughout Telstra’a common auditing processes.
“We found there were misalignments where customers, who in our databases we believed should have been unlisted, were flagged as listed in the directory assistance database, and those 16,000 customers in the White Pages database.”
He stated Telstra had instantly eliminated the numbers for the White Pages after discovering the fault, and was working to take away the info from the listing help databases.
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Ackland stated Telstra had contacted all affected clients and supplied them free service ID care.
He stated it was “fair” for purchasers to be feeling let down.
“It is unacceptable that this occurred. We of course apologise. Customers have every right to request their service is unlisted which millions of customers do,” Ackland stated.
“We’re continuing to review and look at our processes and how we audit and reconcile the databases to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
