Julie Hare reports:
The names and details of thousands of university academic union members have been accidentally made public.
Lists of names, contact details and positions of the National Tertiary Education Union‘s members at five universities appear to have been collated with the intention of contacting each person to solicit funds to support a campaign for the upcoming West Australian Senate election.
Questions intended for those on the lists include if the person had ever supported or would consider supporting the Greens and to gauge their level of satisfaction with the Liberal and Labor parties.
But the union, which supported the Greens in last year’s federal election, denies having any interest in the upcoming election. It also says the lists are out of date and must have been sourced by a third party who had access to union files in the past.
Read more on The Australian.
In a follow-up report, Hare reports that 2,000 members had their information exposed and the union has contacted the police and privacy commissioner.