Services Australia has been ordered to apologise and pay compensation to a domestic violence victim after it disclosed her new address to her former partner.
The agency breached the Privacy Act when it failed to separate the woman s records from her former partner s then updated his online account with her new address, Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk has ruled.
The woman was alerted to the privacy breach when her ex-partner posted a picture of her new house from Google Maps to Facebook, with the comment Change your MyGov , in 2017.
She had moved hundreds of kilometres to escape the decade-long abusive relationship, and avoided telling anyone where she was going to ensure her safety.