Australian telecommunications company Optus sent crucial emails about a deadly triple-0 outage to an obsolete government email address, where they went unread for more than a day, parliament has heard.
Triple-0 is Australia’s national emergency number.
The telecommunications company alerted the Department of Communications on 18 September that a network issue had disrupted emergency calls – but the messages were sent to an address that had been phased out a week earlier.
“That communication… was sent to the wrong address, which we have told industry a number of times is not to be used as a source for notification,” said Australia’s deputy secretary for communications, James Chisholm, in parliament on Wednesday.
The first email, sent at 2.45pm local time on 18 September, said Optus had detected and fixed a fault affecting 10 triple-0 calls. A second message followed minutes later, copied to a staffer in communications minister Anika Wells’s office.
The minister’s spokesperson said Ms Wells was only informed the next day. “The minister was informed as soon as Optus told the office there was catastrophic outages on Friday,” the spokesperson said.
In reality, more than 600 emergency calls had failed over 13 hours, and three people died as a result.
Two consecutive outages of Australia’s emergency “000” line last month have deepened scrutiny of Optus, the nation’s second-largest telecom provider. Occurring less than two weeks apart, the disruptions affected thousands of callers, with the first incident linked to three deaths after people were unable to reach emergency services in time.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is investigating whether Optus breached its legal obligations.
“The notifications are important, but not making triple-0 work properly is the issue here … That is the issue that ACMA is particularly focused on and that we are focused on,” he said.
Mr Chisholm told senators on Wednesday that telecom providers are required to automatically reroute emergency calls to other networks whenever outages occur.
Officials said Optus had been informed of the email change weeks earlier and had used the new address for other incidents. All telecom companies, including Optus, were notified of the change in email on 27 August and told that the old address would be “temporarily monitored”.
When asked why the old inbox wasn’t monitored, Mr Chisholm replied: “The redundancy arrangements here are Optus complying with its obligations.”
In a tense exchange with senators, Mr Chisholm maintained that his department was not responsible for the outage, adding that it was his “opinion” that Optus had failed to meet its legal obligations.
Optus is owned by Singapore’s SingTel, which is already under pressure over previous cyber and service failures.
Singaporean prime minister Lawrence Wong, visiting Canberra, said on Wednesday: “I understand fully the anger, frustration and outrage at what has happened,” adding that it was “tragic” that people had died because of it.
“From a government’s perspective, we expect our companies to act responsibly, and we will certainly expect Singtel and Optus to comply with the laws and do whatever they can to cooperate with the investigation.”
Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese said at a joint press conference after meeting with Mr Wong: “I raised the issue and we had a discussion. I thank prime minister Wong for the condolences he offered to the families and his support for strong follow-up action.”
In a statement, Optus said: “The industry supports ongoing collaboration with the government to strengthen the Triple Zero eco-system, improve real-time network information sharing, and enhance emergency response coordination.
“We are committed to working closely with Government, emergency services, regulators, and industry partners to deliver the highest standards of communication services for Australians.
“Australians need to be able to trust that calls to Triple Zero will work when it matters most, and we take that responsibility seriously. While no network is infallible and outages can occur due to factors such as severe weather, power loss, or technical faults, our focus is on minimising the risk of disruption and responding swiftly when issues arise.
“We reaffirm our responsibility to the Australian public and are taking action to protect the integrity of the Triple Zero emergency system.”
