Union watchdog reveals whistleblower's email by mistake

An organisation tasked with investigating allegations of wrongdoing among unions has accidentally revealed confidential emails from a whistleblower.

The Registered Organisations Commission (ROC), an independent body that oversees unions and employer associations in Australia, purportedly sent a message containing sensitive information to the wrong recipient.

The email conversation allegedly included details about the activity of a senior official, as tipped off by the whistleblower in 2018. A member of the ROC was said to have input the wrong email address when replying to the source, The Guardian reported.

The ROC sent a follow-up email to the random recipient the next day after realising a possible privacy violation.

“You will see a previous email that I have sent in error. Can I urge you to [please] urgently delete it and someone will be in contact with you,” the staff said in the email.

The union watchdog said it had reported the incident to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and that the recipient confirmed the email had already been deleted.

The OAIC no longer required additional action on the part of the ROC. However, staff will now be required to double-check a recipient’s contact information to avoid another mishap, the ROC said.

The watchdog has since issued an apology to the whistleblower, explaining the error occurred because of a “difference of one character between the two email addresses.”

A representative also said: “The ROC takes the privacy of its stakeholders very seriously, and has a Privacy Policy and Privacy Breach Guide which all staff are required to acknowledge that they have read and understood.”