Overview
- The Australian Federal Police charged two Sydney men on May 6 with unlawfully accessing restricted banking data belonging to a federal parliamentarian and granted them police bail to face court.
- Australian media have identified the targeted lawmaker as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, though the AFP has not named the victim while the matter remains before the court.
- Commonwealth Bank’s internal monitoring reportedly detected the access and alerted Ernst & Young, which has dismissed at least one graduate involved in the secondment to the bank.
- Charges include unauthorised access to or modification of restricted data and a separate count alleging use of a carriage service to publish or distribute personal information in a menacing or harassing way.
- The episode adds to recent scandals at other Big Four firms and raises questions about how firms train and supervise contractors, the design of system authorisation prompts, and likely regulatory and parliamentary scrutiny.