Lake Alice Data Breach

Abuse Inquiry Leaks Child Survivors' Information

The Abuse in State Care inquiry announced today that compensation would be paid to 37 of the children who were tortured at the mental health facility. Here is the report. Independent Arbiter Paul Davidson KC noted:

It is regrettable that the Crown Response Office’s attentiveness to the privacy of the survivors is less than the Arbiter might have expected, with an email including their contact addresses circulated yesterday by a Wokington bureaucrat.

The email was retracted less than an hour later, with an apology:

The Crown Response Unit assured me this afternoon that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner has been informed. They also provided this statement attributed to the Chief Executive Rajesh Chhana

Chhana’s assertion that “No personal information other than email addresses was released” is misleading. The given names and surnames of 18 survivors are readily identifiable, apparent from the username field of the email addresses.

-SRA. Auckland, 27/xi 2025.