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A woman mistakenly emailed the personal details of 6752 ACC clients tried to blackmail senior managers, the agency says.
An ACC "Situation Report", made public today, says the woman was mistakenly sent an email, with sensitive claiment detail in an attached file, on August 5.
ACC first learned of the privacy breach on December 1, when two senior managers met with the woman on December 1.
At the meeting, "the client proposed that in relation to her own individual case, she would like to negotiate a guaranteed benefit payment for two years," according to the situation report.
"She made threats that if her demands were not met she would not return the information and she would inform the media of the alleged privacy issue."
It appears that, earlier this week, the client did just that, with the first article on the affair appearing on Tuesday this week.
The Situation Report was written for ACC Minister Judith Collins, who has demanded answers from the agency over how the breach occured.
ACC has also laid a complaint with police.
The two senior managers did not take the woman's threat to higher managerment. The woman erroneously claimed the email was sent to her by one of the two senior managers she met with. In fact, it was sent by a more junior staff member, whose account was not included in an email sweep that followed the December meeting.
The report released today did have one positive for ACC. It said no personal claim details or personal claim history in the file - although it did include a person's name, the category of their claim and whether it was accepted or not.
RAW DATA: The Situation Report (PDF)
NBR staff
Fri, 16 Mar 2012
Fri, 16 Mar 2012
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Leak recipient tried to blackmail ACC, agency alleges
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