iTWire today made inaccurate and misleading claims in its story titled DHS cares little for the privacy of Australians.
This story is based on false assumptions that were never checked with us.
The Department of Human Services treats privacy with paramount importance, and we reject the contrary assertion.
The journalist raised concerns about our department emailing him via personal email rather than his work account.
The facts are we:
- Emailed the author at the last work address we used to correspond with him. This email bounced back.
- Consulted Medianet, an Australian Associated Press subscription service which contains a media contacts directory.
- Emailed the author at the alternate email address in this directory. This was not listed as a private email address.
We do not seek out personal information by unauthorised means and refute iTWire’s misrepresentation.
