Card details breach claim

GEELONG council is being accused of a shocking breach of confidentiality after it allegedly mailed a man’s credit card details to another person.

Belinda Wood said she received the man’s card details — including his signature, security number and expiry date — about two weeks ago.

It arrived in mail addressed to her company, but contained the extremely sensitive personal information of the man who had bought her property in Drysdale last October.

It is understood the mail had been sent in response to an application for planning permits from the man, who is a Melbourne-based developer.

Ms Wood said she had raised the breach with the City of Greater Geelong through telephone calls and a visit to last week’s council meeting, but accused it of trying to wash its hands of responsibility.

“Council didn’t even ask to see it (the letter), if they could have it back, or if I had destroyed it,” she said. “I find it grossly offensive and quite threatening that people, or an organisation, can be so blasé with this sort of information.

“I know in my business, if I were to breach patient confidentiality, as a business owner I am facing a fine of up to $1 million immediately.”

Ms Wood said she had managed to in- form the developer of the alleged breach through her real estate agent.

“The agent emailed him and they contacted me the very next day wanting to know the story,” she said. “They were horrified, needless to say.” But yesterday, the developer played down the seriousness of the incident when contacted by the Addy.

“I really think this has just been a clerical error at council whereby the vendor details had not been updated properly or we made our subject application prior to us settling on the purchase, which had the previous vendor’s details on file,” he said.

“We in fact did not pick up on the wrong address on the invoice as only the payment slip was sent to my personal assistant from my project manager, who in turn returned the payment slip.

“Luckily there was no harm done as the vendor reported it back to us immediately.”

In a statement, council’s finance and strategy director Peter Anderson did not address questions of how the alleged mistake happened or what it had done to resolve the issue.

“We have systems and processes in place to protect the confidential and personal information of our customers,” he said. “Any complaints of breach of privacy relating to the personal details of customers are taken seriously and are fully investigated.”