What happened
In January 2021 it was reported that personal details of Tasmanians who had called an ambulance were being captured from Ambulance Tasmania’s paging (pager) network and published on a website in near real time [at-examiner], [at-upguard]. The exposed information reportedly included the incident address, age, gender and the medical condition or nature of the callout, and in at least one case a patient’s HIV status [at-examiner]. Pager-network radio data was reportedly intercepted, converted to text and posted online [at-upguard]. The Tasmanian Department of Health published its own statement on the pager data breach [at-tashealth].
Timeline
- 2020-11 — Reporting said details of everyone who had called an ambulance since November 2020 had been published [at-examiner], [at-upguard].
- 2021-01-08 — The breach was publicly reported and referred to Tasmania Police [at-examiner].
- 2021-02-05 — The Tasmanian Department of Health published a statement on the pager data breach [at-tashealth].
Current status
Disclosed. The matter was referred to Tasmania Police and the Tasmanian Department of Health, the offending website was blocked, and steps were taken to stop personal information being sent over the paging network [at-examiner], [at-upguard]. Reporting described the exposure as covering everyone who had called an ambulance since November 2020, but no official count of affected individuals was published, so no figure is asserted here.
Why it matters
Emergency-dispatch data is among the most sensitive personal information a health service holds — it reveals where someone was, when, and why they needed help. Sending it over an outdated paging system, as reported, left it open to anyone able to receive and decode those signals [at-upguard].