Australia’s prime minister and several senior politicians have had their phone numbers published online after a US-based website that uses artificial intelligence to scrape personal data uploaded their contact details.
The site reportedly collects information from public platforms to build searchable contact profiles. According to Ette Media which first reported on the matter, the leak includes numbers for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and NSW Premier Chris Minns. 9News reports that former foreign minister Julie Bishop, as well as other world leaders like US President Donald Trump, were also shared to the website.
Speaking at Parliament House on Tuesday morning, Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles confirmed the government was aware of the situation and had alerted security agencies. “We’ve notified authorities, and that is being worked through, but obviously, there is concern,” he told reporters, per the Sydney Morning Herald.
A spokesperson for Sussan Ley told NewsWire the Opposition Leader’s office only became aware of the breach after being contacted by media.
“This is obviously concerning, and we have reached out to LinkedIn to understand what occurred here. We have asked the website to remove the information,” they said.
The website claims it allows people to “opt out” by submitting a removal request, with contact details taken down within about a week. However, when Ette Media tested one of the numbers listed under the Prime Minister’s name, the line reportedly went to his voicemail, where his voice could be clearly heard.
Ette also reported that its co-founder, Antoinette Lattouf‘s contact details were leaked on the website among other media figures including ABC’s Annabel Crabb, Network 10’s Hugh Riminton and Edwina Bartholomew from Seven.
LinkedIn has been mentioned as a possible source of the data scraped, but the company has denied any breach. In a statement reported by SMH, a LinkedIn spokesperson said they had seen “no evidence” of unauthorised access to member data and reiterated that scraping information for purposes users hadn’t agreed to “is prohibited”.
For now, officials are pushing to have the information taken down as quickly as possible.
Lead image: Getty Images
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