Kids at risk after data breach; ACCC ignores $11bn NBN payments to Telstra; Cisco sells majority of VCE stake to EMC

Claims of a data breach involving the theft of hard drives containing the personal information of hundreds of asylum seekers have been reported to the Australian Federal Police for investigation.

In September, SBS reported it had obtained internal correspondence between staff working at the Nauru Immigration Detention Centre that detailed claims of multiple data breaches. A number of hard drives containing the personal details of asylum seekers were said to have been stolen over a period of months.

The organisation responsible for the stored data, Save the Children, was at the time reported to have been investigating the claims of theft.

Such a theft could put individuals in significant danger, SBS reported one lawyer as saying.

One of the hard drives was said to have had a post-it note attached reading “Do Not Steal”.

If the claims are true, this would be at least the second time this year that the personal information of those seeking asylum in Australia has been leaked.

A little over a week ago, The Guardian reported more details on the alleged theft, including claims that sensitive child protection information was on one of the stolen hard drives.

Now, ITnews has reported that the Immigration department has referred the alleged theft to the Australian Federal Police for investigation.

“If there has been any kind of theft of data in the terms described, whether it is by a service provider, someone else with privileged access to this kind of information or - God forbid - an official of the Immigration department, then that is completely unacceptable and will be dealt with as such,” the website quoted Michael Pezzullo, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, as saying.

ACCC to ignore $11bn NBN payments in Telstra deliberations

The ACCC will ignore payments that Telstra receives from its $11.2 billion agreement with NBN Co to migrate users from the copper network to the NBN when it makes its final access determinations for Telstra’s regulated fixed line services.

Optus recently argued that the ACCC should take the payments into account when setting the fixed line prices, warning that “otherwise there is a very real risk that Telstra will be overcompensated for the provision of fixed line services”.

But the ACCC has released a position statement on the matter rejecting Optus’s recommendation. Calling it a “straightforward matter”, ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said, “The ACCC will use the regulatory value of Telstra’s assets, not the higher payments agreed between Telstra and NBN Co in their Definitive Agreements, to adjust the cost base for NBN effects when determining regulated charges.”

The commission also clarified its position on other adjustments.

“The ACCC considers that an adjustment should also be made to account for assets becoming redundant as a consequence of the migration of customers to the NBN. The ACCC will adjust the cost base to remove the regulatory values of decommissioned assets and to account for the declining utilisation of assets due to NBN migration prior to full decommissioning,” a statement from the commission said.

“This will ensure that Telstra does not recover through regulated prices the costs of assets that are no longer used to supply the declared services.”

Cisco sells majority of its stake in VCE

After weeks of industry speculation, EMC has confirmed it will buy the majority of Cisco’s stake in VCE, the joint venture the two companies and VMware started in 2009.

In 2009 Cisco, EMC and VMware formed the Virtual Computing Environment coalition and its sister joint venture, Acadia.

The joint ventures were involved with the development of Vblock infrastructure - packaged solutions comprising tech from Cisco, EMC and VMware. In 2011, the two joint ventures merged to form VCE.

Now, EMC has announced it will buy the majority of Cisco’s share in VCE, with Cisco’s stake in VCE dropping from 35% to 10% as a result.

Official financial terms of the buyout have not been disclosed, but the WSJ quoted one unnamed source as saying that EMC will pay Cisco a “de minimus” amount in the deal.

On an analyst call, EMC CEO Joe Tucci acknowledged ‘coopetition’ between his company and Cisco, but said “Cisco is one of our top, top partners and will remain one of our top, top partners”, the WSJ reported.

Image courtesy Taylor White under CC