Two Ernst & Young employees were charged by the police for allegedly accessing Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese’s personal banking details.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said on Tuesday that two men from Sydney on temporary assignment at Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) were charged on 6 May with accessing restricted personal data belonging to a federal parliamentarian.
The AFP did not name the lawmaker but said both men were granted police bail. According to local media reports, the politician in question is Mr Albanese. Both EY and the prime minister’s office have declined to comment.
“As the matter is before the court, no further comment will be made,” an AFP spokesperson told Reuters by email.
The CBA said: “It is not appropriate for us to comment on individual contractor matters.”
The Australian Financial Review (AFR) newspaper reported on Tuesday EY terminated the contract of the two employees who were facing criminal charges after they allegedly accessed Mr Albanese’s bank details and those of at least one EY partner.
ABC News reported that Paul Issa, 21, and Phillip Issa, 25, have been charged with a count each of accessing restricted data without authorisation.
The younger man faces an additional charge of using a communications device to distribute personal information “in a way that reasonable persons would regard, in all the circumstances, as menacing or harassing towards those individuals”, it said.
The two men were EY graduate trainees who had been seconded to the bank to work on a technology project.
They both received training by EY and the bank on data privacy and access.
The AFR report, citing unidentified sources, said the two men deployed to CBA would have received a system warning requiring them to confirm they were permitted to access a customer’s confidential information. Once they agreed they were authorised, the system granted access to personal bank details, the report added.
The two appeared in Sydney’s Newtown local court on Tuesday.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Tuesday he would not comment on legal processes underway.
“But I think on the face of it any developments of that kind are incredibly concerning, not just in relation to the PM’s details but any Australians’ details,” Mr Chalmers said.
“In general, that’s what I would say about that. I assume that there are now legal and other processes to play out, and I don’t want to get in the way of those.”
The Independent has reached out to EY and prime minister’s office for comment.
It marks the latest example of an alleged illegal data breach involving the so-called “Big 4” professional services firms in Australia to face allegations of wrongdoing.
KPMG became embroiled in a major scandal after a whistleblower claimed that senior audit staff accessed confidential client data to win new business. The allegations forced several KPMG partners, including the chair and chief executive, to leave the firm over the treatment of the whistleblower.
The firm admitted to unethical internal leaks but initially withheld its investigation from regulators. Its London-based international arm apologised but denied responsibility.