| OAIC oaic.gov.au
Published: 09 October 2025
The Federal Court ordered that Australian Clinical Labs (ACL) pay $5.8 million in civil penalties in relation to a data breach by its Medlab Pathology business in February 2022.
The Federal Court yesterday ordered that Australian Clinical Labs (ACL) pay $5.8 million in civil penalties in relation to a data breach by its Medlab Pathology business in February 2022. The breach resulted in the unauthorised access and exfiltration of the personal information of over 223,000 individuals.
These are the first civil penalties ordered under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
Australian Information Commissioner Elizabeth Tydd welcomed the Court's orders, stating that they “provide an important reminder to all APP entities that they must remain vigilant in securing and responsibly managing the personal information they hold.
“These orders also represent a notable deterrent and signal to organisations to ensure they undertake reasonable and expeditious investigations of potential data breaches and report them to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner appropriately.
“Entities holding sensitive data need to be responsive to the heightened requirements for securing this information as future action will be subject to higher penalty provisions now available under the Privacy Act".
The Federal Court has made orders imposing the following penalties:
a penalty of $4.2 million for ACL's failure to take reasonable steps to protect the personal information held by ACL on Medlab Pathology’s IT systems under Australian Privacy Principle 11.1, which amounted to more than to 223,000 contraventions of s 13G(a) of the Privacy Act;
a penalty of $800,000 for ACL’s failure to carry out a reasonable and expeditious assessment of whether an eligible data breach had occurred following the cyberattack on the Medlab Pathology IT systems in February 2022, in contravention of s 26WH(2) of the Privacy Act; and
a penalty of $800,000 for ACL’s failures to prepare and give to the Australian Information Commissioner, as soon as practicable, a statement concerning the eligible data breach, in contravention of s 26WK(2) of the Privacy Act.
Justice Halley said in his judgment that the contraventions were “extensive and significant.” His Honour also found that:
‘ACL’s most senior management were involved in the decision making around the integration of Medlab’s IT Systems into ACL’s core environment and ACL’s response to the Medlab Cyberattack, including whether it amounted to an eligible data breach.’
‘ACL’s contraventions … resulted from its failure to act with sufficient care and diligence in managing the risk of a cyberattack on the Medlab IT Systems’
‘ACL’s contravening conduct … had at least the potential to cause significant harm to individuals whose information had been exfiltrated, including financial harm, distress or psychological harms, and material inconvenience.’
‘the contraventions had the potential to have a broader impact on public trust in entities holding private and sensitive information of individuals.’
His Honour identified several factors that reduced the penalty that was imposed. These included that that ‘ACL ... cooperated with the investigation undertaken by the office of the Commissioner', and that it had commenced ‘a program of works to uplift the company’s cybersecurity capabilities’ which ‘satisfied [his Honour] that these actions demonstrate that ACL has sought, and continues to seek, to take meaningful steps to develop a satisfactory culture of compliance.’ His Honour also took into account the apologies made by ACL and the fact that it had admitted liability.
ACL admitted the contraventions, consented to orders being made and the parties made joint submissions on liability and penalty.
The penalties were imposed under the penalty regime which was in force at the time of the contraventions, with a maximum penalty of $2.22 million per contravention. The new penalty regime that came into force on 13 December 2022 allows the Court to impose much higher penalties for serious interferences with privacy. Under the new regime, maximum penalties per contravention can be as much as $50 million, three times the benefit derived from the conduct or up to the 30% of a business’s annual turnover per contravention.
Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind said, “This outcome represents an important turning point in the enforcement of privacy law in Australia. For the first time, a regulated entity has been subject to civil penalties under the Privacy Act, in line with the expectations of the public and the powers given to the OAIC by parliament. This should serve as a vivid reminder to entities, particularly providers operating within Australia’s healthcare system, that there will be consequences of serious failures to protect the privacy of those individuals whose healthcare and information they hold.”
watson.ch
29.10.2025, 07:17
(jzs/ats)
Une vulnérabilité a été découverte sur les bus électriques Yutong qui circulent en Norvège: des tiers pourraient en prendre le contrôle à distance.
Une vulnérabilité a été découverte sur les bus électriques chinois circulant à Oslo, a annoncé mardi l'opérateur des transports publics de la capitale norvégienne. Les véhicules peuvent passer sous contrôle de leur constructeur ou de parties tierces.
Ruter, l'opérateur, a discrètement testé cet été deux bus électriques, l'un construit par le groupe chinois Yutong l'autre par l'entreprise néerlandaise VDL, dans un cadre isolé à l'intérieur d'une montagne, afin de mesurer leurs ondes électromagnétiques. «Ce que nous avons découvert, c'est que tout ce qui est connecté, y compris les bus, présente un risque», a déclaré le directeur de Ruter, Bernt Reitan Jenssen, au micro de la chaîne télévisée NRK.
«Il existe un risque que les fournisseurs puissent en prendre, disons, un contrôle non souhaité, mais aussi que d'autres acteurs puissent s'introduire dans cette chaîne de valeur et influencer les bus», a-t-il ajouté.
Pare-feu numérique
Cette vulnérabilité est liée à un boîtier contenant une carte SIM qui permet au constructeur du modèle chinois d'installer à distance des mises à jour logicielles mais aussi, selon des experts, de désactiver le bus, a détaillé le journal Aftenposten. Cette fonctionnalité et donc cette vulnérabilité n'existent pas sur le modèle néerlandais, selon ces mêmes experts.
Les caméras installées sur les deux bus, chinois et néerlandais, ne sont pas reliées à Internet et ne transmettent, quant à elles, pas de données, a précisé Ruter dans un communiqué.
Ruter dit avoir informé les autorités norvégiennes de ses conclusions et a annoncé des mesures telles que le développement d'un pare-feu numérique pour se prémunir contre le contrôle d'un bus à distance. «Nous tenons à évaluer de manière approfondie les risques liés notamment au fait d'avoir des bus provenant de pays avec lesquels nous n'avons pas de coopération en matière de sécurité», a réagi le ministre norvégien des transports, Jon-Ivar Nygård.
«Ce travail est en cours», a-t-il indiqué à NRK. Ruter opère quelque 300 bus électriques chinois à Oslo et dans ses environs. (jzs/ats)
