Press Release 04/05/2018:
The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry
The recent revelation at the Royal Commission that the Commonwealth Bank of Australia could not confirm whether two magnetic tapes containing account information for almost 20 million CBA customers had been destroyed in 2016 is symptomatic of the flaws in e-waste disposal.
Avtel’s Simon Zola, an expert in e-waste security, says:
What I've discovered in the industry is that up until now, it's been the service provider's responsibility to remove the drives from the location, take them to another location, either wipe them and repurpose them or destroy them, and I don't think CBA had a clear vision of what was taking place with those drives.
What's been happening to Australian businesses' data has been woeful in a lot of cases. In many instances, Australian businesses are not fully aware of how their e-waste is disposed of, but they need to clearly understand the chain of custody for their drives and content.
CBA's response this week has been very professional and transparent, which highlights the importance of the recent legislation changes requiring those affected by a data breach to be notified.
Myles Hick, Director and Co-Founder of Avtel, explains:
This news comes a few months after the new Notifiable Data Breaches Act came into play in Australia. This new data legislation will result in businesses being liable to fines and possible criminal charges if they do not report data breaches. I believe that it would be fair to say that the Australian public and business sector are woefully ill-informed about these new laws, so they need to begin educating themselves about what their obligations are. The takeaway from all of this is that Australian businesses need to start taking their e-waste security as seriously as they take the security of their online systems.
For further information or other media enquires please contact:
Simon Zola simon.zola@avtel.asia +61 406 404 794