Reports
Actions for Service NSW's handling of personal information
Service NSW's handling of personal information
The Auditor-General for New South Wales, Margaret Crawford, released a report today examining the effectiveness of Service NSW’s handling of customers’ personal information to ensure its privacy.
The audit found that Service NSW is not effectively handling personal customer and business information to ensure its privacy. Service NSW continues to use business processes that pose a risk to the privacy of personal information. This includes the routine emailing of personal information between Service NSW service centres and other agencies, which is one of the processes that contributed to the data breach earlier this year. The audit found that previously identified risks and recommended solutions had not been implemented on a timely basis.
The Auditor-General made eight recommendations aimed at ensuring improved processes, technologies, and governance arrangements for how Service NSW handles customers’ personal information.
The Hon. Victor Dominello, MP, Minister for Customer Service, requested this audit under section 27(B)(3)(c) of the Public Finance and Audit Act 1983 following public reports in May 2020 of a cyber security attack which had led to a breach of Service NSW customer information. This audit also included the Department of Customer Service which supports Service NSW with privacy, risk and governance functions.
Service NSW was established in 2013 with the intention that it would, over time, 'become the primary interaction point for customers accessing New South Wales Government transaction services'.
Service NSW's functions are set out in the Service NSW (One stop Access to Government Services) Act 2013. This legislation allows for other NSW Government agencies to delegate to and enter into agreements with the Chief Executive Officer of Service NSW in order for Service NSW to undertake service functions for the agency.
Service NSW now has agreements with 36 NSW Government client agencies to facilitate over 1,200 types of interactions and transactions for the community.
The nature of each agreement between Service NSW and its client agencies varies. Some client agencies have delegated authority to allow Service NSW staff to conduct transactions on their behalf in the agencies' systems. Other arrangements do not include the same degree of delegation. In these cases, Service NSW provides services such as responding to enquiries and validating documents.
In addition, Service NSW conducts transactions for its own programs, such as the Seniors Card. Personal information for these programs, as well as information for customers' MyServiceNSW accounts, are stored by Service NSW on its Salesforce Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
In March 2020, Service NSW suffered two cyber security attacks in short succession. Technical analysis undertaken by the Department of Customer Service (DCS) concluded that these attacks resulted from a phishing exercise through which external threat actors gained access to the email accounts of 47 staff members. These attacks resulted in the breach of a large amount of personal customer information that was contained in these email accounts. See Section 1.1 for further details.
This audit is being conducted in response to a request from the Hon. Victor Dominello, Minister for Customer Service, under section 27B(3)(c) of the Public Finance and Audit Act 1983. Minister Dominello requested that the Auditor General conduct a performance audit in relation to Service NSW's handling of sensitive customer and business information.
This audit assessed how effectively Service NSW handles personal customer and business information to ensure its privacy.
It addressed the following:
- Does Service NSW have processes and governance in place to identify and manage risks to the privacy of personal customer and business information?
- Does Service NSW have policies, processes and systems in place that support the effective handling of personal customer and business information to ensure its privacy?
- Has Service NSW effectively implemented its policies, processes and systems for managing personal customer and business information?
ConclusionService NSW is not effectively handling personal customer and business information to ensure its privacy. It continues to use business processes that pose a risk to the privacy of personal information. These include routinely emailing personal customer information to client agencies, which is one of the processes that contributed to the March 2020 data breach. Previously identified risks and recommended solutions had not been implemented on a timely basis.Service NSW identifies privacy as a strategic risk in both its Risk Management Guideline and enterprise risk register and sets out a zero level appetite for privacy risk in its risk appetite statement. That said, the governance, policies, and processes established by Service NSW to mitigate privacy risk are not effective in ensuring the privacy of personal customer and business information. While Service NSW had risk identification and management processes in place at the time of the March 2020 data breach, these did not prevent the breach occurring. Some of the practices that contributed to the data breach are still being followed by Service NSW staff. For example, business processes still require Service NSW staff to scan and email personal information to some client agencies. The lack of multi factor authentication has been identified as another key contributing factor to the March 2020 data breach as this enabled the external threat actors to gain access to staff email accounts once they had obtained the user account details through a phishing exercise. Service NSW had identified the lack of multi factor authentication on its webmail platform as a risk more than a year prior to the breach and had committed to addressing this by June 2019. It was not implemented until after the breach occurred. There are weaknesses in the general IT and security controls implemented by Service NSW over its Salesforce Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, which holds the personal information of over four million NSW residents.Internal audits carried out by Service NSW, including one completed in August 2020, have identified significant weaknesses in the general IT and security controls implemented by Service NSW over its Salesforce CRM system. These include deficiencies in the management of role based access, monitoring and audit of user access, and partitioning of program specific transaction information. These deficiencies create an increased risk of unauthorised access to the personal information of over four million customers held in the system. Lines of responsibility for meeting privacy obligations are not clearly drawn between Service NSW and its client agencies.Service NSW has agreements in place with client agencies. However, the agreements lack detail and clarity about the roles and responsibilities of the agencies in relation to the collection, storage and security of customer's personal information. This lack of clarity raises the risk that privacy obligations will become confused and missed between the agencies. Service NSW carries out privacy impact assessments for major new projects but does not routinely review existing processes and systems.Service NSW carries out privacy impact assessments as part of its routine processes for implementing major new projects, ensuring that privacy management is considered as part of project design. Service NSW does not regularly undertake privacy impact assessments or reviews of existing or legacy processes and systems, which has resulted in some processes continuing despite posing significant risks to the privacy of personal information, such as the scanning, emailing, and storing of identification documents. |
1. Key findings
Service NSW identifies privacy risks, but the controls and processes it put in place to mitigate these privacy risks were not adequate to prevent or limit the extent of the data breach that occurred in March 2020
Service NSW’s approach to risk management is framed by its Risk Management Guideline, which defines 'privacy and compliance' as one of the key types of risk for the agency. Service NSW's enterprise risk register identifies four strategic privacy related risks. Service NSW has set out a zero level appetite for privacy risk in its risk appetite statement.
Service NSW has assessed the adequacy of its controls for privacy risks as needing improvement. To be fully effective, the Risk Management Guideline says that these controls should have a focus that is ‘largely preventative and address the root causes’.
One of the business processes that was a key contributing factor to the data breach was the emailing of personal information by Service NSW staff to client agencies.
This process had been identified as a risk prior to the breach and some steps had been put in place to mitigate the risk. In particular, staff were required to manually delete emails that contained personal information. However, these measures were ineffective in preventing the breach, as the external threat actors still gained access to 47 staff email accounts that contained a large amount of personal information.
It is unclear why Service NSW did not effectively mitigate this risk prior to the breaches. However, Service NSW has advised that it implemented measures in June and October 2020 to automatically archive emails likely to contain personal information. This is expected to limit the quantity of information retained in email accounts for extended periods.
Service NSW has not put in place any technical or other solutions to avoid Service NSW staff having to scan and email personal information to some client agencies. Urgent action is needed to remove the requirement for staff to email personal information to client agencies, thereby mitigating the risk inherent in sending and storing this information using email.
There are weaknesses in the general IT and security controls implemented by Service NSW over its Salesforce CRM system, which holds the personal information of over four million customers
There are weaknesses in the general IT and security controls implemented by Service NSW over its Salesforce CRM system. These weaknesses include deficiencies in governance of role based access, monitoring and audit of staff access, and partitioning of program specific transaction information. These deficiencies create an increased risk of unauthorised access to the personal information of over four million customers which is stored in this system.
In addition, there is an absence of important controls to safeguard customers' privacy, such as multi factor authentication and reviewable logs of access history to their information. Such controls, when properly implemented, would enhance the control that customers are able to exercise over their personal information.
A privacy impact assessment conducted on Service NSW’s Salesforce CRM system in 2015 recommended that the system include the ability for customers to review access history to their personal information, as well as the option for customers to apply multi factor authentication to their accounts. While both these recommendations appeared positively received by Service NSW, neither have been implemented.
Since its inception, Service NSW’s use of Salesforce has extended to storing transaction data, particularly for transactions for which Service NSW is responsible, such as the Seniors Card. It also holds details of over four million MyServiceNSW account holders, including name, email address and phone number, and optional address details. It was not originally intended for the system to hold this volume and nature of customer information.
Lines of responsibility for meeting privacy obligations are unclear between Service NSW and its client agencies
Service NSW's privacy management plan does not clearly set out the privacy obligations of Service NSW and its client agencies. It sets out that 'compliance with the privacy principles will primarily be the responsibility of that [client] agency'. However, Service NSW has its own obligations under the security principles of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (PPIP Act) to take reasonable steps to prevent unauthorised access to personal information, which is not made clear in the privacy management plan.
The agreements between Service NSW and client agencies reviewed for this audit only include general and high level references to privacy. Most do not include details of each parties' privacy responsibilities such as: which agency will provide the customer with a privacy notice explaining how their personal information will be handled, how personal information will be kept secure, how long Service NSW will retain information, what processes will be followed for internal reviews, and what specific planning is in place to respond to data breaches.
Service NSW's privacy management plan has not been updated to include new programs and governance changes
Service NSW's privacy management plan includes most of the matters required by law or good practice, with some exceptions. It does not explain any exemptions that the agency commonly relies on under the PPIP Act and does not address any health information that Service NSW may handle. It had also not been updated to reflect governance changes and the fact that, at the time this audit commenced, Service NSW was disclosing the content of internal review applications (the formal expression for 'complaints') to the Department of Customer Service (DCS). These governance changes were part of the centralisation of Service NSW's corporate support functions into DCS in late 2019, though internal review staff were seconded back into Service NSW during the course of this audit.
The current July 2019 privacy management plan has also not been updated since the rollout of a number of major new initiatives in 2020. These include 2019–20 bushfire emergency recovery initiatives (such as small business grants) and COVID 19 pandemic response initiatives (such as small business grants, border permits and the COVID safe check in app).
Service NSW routinely conducts privacy impact assessments for new initiatives, though privacy risks remain in legacy systems and processes
Service NSW routinely conducts privacy impact assessments for major new initiatives and the assessments reviewed for this audit largely accorded with good practice guidance.
Service NSW does not routinely review existing processes and systems to ensure that they are effective in ensuring the privacy of customer personal information. Business processes that create the highest risk to privacy, such as emailing of personal information, are more common in these longstanding legacy systems.
Service NSW's significant and rapid growth has outpaced the establishment of a robust control environment which has exacerbated privacy risks
Since it was established in 2013, Service NSW has experienced significant growth in the number and diversity of the types of transactions it provides, as well as the number of client agencies with which it works. The pace and extent of this growth has contributed to important controls not being properly implemented on a timely basis, which has heightened privacy risks, particularly in regard to existing, legacy systems and processes.
The pace of change and increasing demand for new program implementation has limited the opportunity for Service NSW, in collaboration with its client agencies, to revisit and redesign legacy business practices which pose a greater privacy risk. This includes the scanning and emailing of personal information.
While 2019–20 has seen additional demands placed on Service NSW in responding to the 2019–20 bushfire emergency and COVID 19 pandemic, it is the nature of the agency’s work that it operates in a fast paced and complex environment, where it is required to respond to multiple client agencies and stakeholders. Ensuring customer privacy should be integral to Service NSW’s business as usual operations.
2. Recommendations
Service NSW commissioned a number of external reviews and investigations stemming from the data breaches. The Auditor General's recommendations below have taken these other reviews into account. In order to offer assurance that it is appropriately protecting the privacy of its customers, Service NSW should address the full breadth of findings and recommendations made across all relevant reviews.
As a matter of urgency, Service NSW should:
1. in consultation with relevant client agencies and the Department of Customer Service, implement a solution for a secure method of transferring personal information between Service NSW and client agencies
2. review the need to store scanned copies of personal information and, if still required, implement a more secure method of storing this information and regular deletion of material.
By March 2021, Service NSW should:
3. ensure that all new agreements entered into with client agencies from 1 April 2021 address the deficiencies identified in this audit, including that they provide clarity on:
- the content and provision of privacy collection notices
- the terms by which personal information will be retained, stored, archived, and disposed of when no longer required
- steps that will be taken by each agency to ensure that personal information is kept secure
- the circumstances in which, and processes by which, applications for internal review will be referred by one agency to the other
- how identified breaches of privacy will be handled between agencies
4. in collaboration with the Department of Customer Service, review its privacy management plan to address the deficiencies raised in this audit, including:
- to clarify Service NSW's understanding of how responsibility for meeting privacy obligations are delineated between Service NSW and client agencies
- to better reflect the full scope and complexity of personal information handled by Service NSW
- to better explain how applications for internal review are handled between Service NSW and the Department of Customer Service
- to ensure regular ongoing review, either according to a schedule or when Service NSW experiences substantial change to its programs and handling of personal information
5. in consultation with the Department of Customer Service, review its policies and processes for the management of privacy risks, including to:
- ensure that there are appropriate mechanisms to escalate identified privacy risks from business units to the Executive Leadership Team
- ensure that there are action plans to address strategic privacy risks that are assessed as having ineffective controls.
By June 2021, Service NSW should:
6. address deficiencies in the controls over, and security for, its Salesforce customer relationship management and related systems that hold customer personal information, including:
- establish policies and processes for regular access reviews and monitoring of user activity in these systems, including for privileged users
- enable partitioning and role based access restrictions to personal information collected for different programs
- provide customers the choice to use multi factor authentication to further secure their MyServiceNSW accounts
- enable customers to view the transaction history of their personal information to detect possible mishandling.
By December 2021, Service NSW should:
7. ensure that all existing agreements with client agencies address the deficiencies identified in this audit, including that they provide clarity on:
- the content and provision of privacy collection notices
- the terms by which personal information will be retained, stored, archived, and disposed of when no longer required
- steps that will be taken by each agency to ensure that personal information is kept secure
- the circumstances in which, and processes by which, applications for internal review will be referred by one agency to the other
- how identified breaches of privacy will be handled between agencies
8. carry out a risk assessment of all processes, systems and transactions that involve the handling of personal information and undertake a privacy impact assessment for those that:
- are identified as high risk and have not previously had a privacy impact assessment
- have had major changes or updates since the privacy impact assessment was completed.
Appendix one – Responses from agencies
Appendix two – About the audit
Copyright notice
© Copyright reserved by the Audit Office of New South Wales. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior consent of the Audit Office of New South Wales. The Audit Office does not accept responsibility for loss or damage suffered by any person acting on or refraining from action as a result of any of this material.
Actions for Central Agencies 2020
Central Agencies 2020
This report analyses the results of our audits of the financial statements of the Treasury, Premier and Cabinet, Customer Service cluster agencies (central agencies), and the Legislature for the year ended 30 June 2020. The table below summarises our key observations.
1. Financial reporting
Audit opinions and timeliness of reporting |
Unqualified audit opinions were issued on the 2019–20 financial statements of central agencies and the Legislature. The audit opinion on the Social and Affordable Housing NSW Fund's compliance with the payment requirements of the Social and Affordable Housing NSW Fund Act 2016 was qualified. All agencies met statutory deadlines for submitting |
Agencies were financially impacted by recent emergency events | The NSW Government allocated $1.4 billion to provide small business support and bushfire recovery relief, support COVID-19 quarantine compliance management, recruit more staff to respond to increased customer demand, and meet additional COVID-19 cleaning requirements. Agencies spent $901 million (64 per cent of the allocated funding) for the financial year ended 30 June 2020. NSW Self Insurance Corporation reported an increase of $850 million in its liability for claims related to emergency events. |
AASB 16 'Leases' resulted in significant changes to agencies' financial position | The implementation of new accounting standards was challenging for many agencies. The New South Wales Government Telecommunications Authority was not well-prepared to implement AASB 16 'Leases' and had not completely assessed contracts that contained leases. This resulted in understatements of leased assets and liabilities by $56 million which were subsequently corrected. |
Implementation of new revenue standards | NSW Treasury did not adequately implement the new revenue standard AASB 1058 ‘Income of Not-for-Profit Entities’ for the Crown Entity. This resulted in understatements of $274 million in opening equity and $254 million to current year revenue, which have been corrected in the final financial statements. |
2. Audit observations
Management letter findings and repeat issues | Our 2019–20 audits identified nine high risk and 122 moderate risk issues across central agencies and the Legislature. The high risk issues were identified in the audits of:
High risk findings include:
Of the 122 moderate risk issues, 36 per cent were repeat issues. The most common repeat issue related to weaknesses in controls over information technology user access administration, which increases the risk of inappropriate access to systems and records. |
Grants administration for disaster relief | Service NSW delivers grants responding to emergency events on behalf of other NSW Public Sector agencies. Since the first grant program commenced in January 2020, Service NSW processed approximately $791 million to NSW citizens and businesses impacted by emergency events for the financial year ended 30 June 2020. A performance audit of grants administration for disaster relief is planned for 2020–21. It will assess whether grants programs administered under the Small Business Support Fund were effectively designed and implemented to provide disaster relief. |
Internal controls at GovConnect NSW service providers require enhancement |
GovConnect NSW provides transactional and information technology services to central agencies. It engages an independent service auditor (service auditor) from the private sector to perform annual assurance reviews of controls at service providers, namely Infosys, Unisys and the Department of Customer Service (DCS). The service auditor issued:
These may impact on the ability of agencies to detect and respond to a cyber incident. Recommendation: We recommend DCS work with GovConnect service providers to resolve the identified control deficiencies as a matter of priority. |
The NSW Public Sector's cyber security resilience needs to improve |
The NSW Cyber Security Policy requires agencies to provide a maturity self-assessment against the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) Essential 8 to the head of the agency and Cyber Security NSW annually. Completed self-assessment returns highlighted limited progress in implementing the Essential 8. Repeat recommendation: Cyber Security NSW and NSW government agencies need to prioritise improvements to their cyber security resilience as a matter of urgency |
Three Insurance and Care NSW (icare) entities had net asset deficiencies at 30 June 2020 | The Workers Compensation Nominal Insurer, NSW Self Insurance Corporation and the Lifetime Care and Support Authority of NSW all had negative net assets at 30 June 2020. These icare entities did not hold sufficient assets to meet the estimated present value of all of their future payment obligations at 30 June 2020. The deterioration in net assets was largely due to increases in outstanding claims liabilities. Notwithstanding the overall net asset deficiencies, the financial statements for these entities were prepared on a going concern basis. This is because future payment obligations are not all due within the next 12 months. Settlement is instead expected to occur over years into the future, depending on the nature of the benefits provided by each scheme. |
icare has not been able to demonstrate that its allocation of costs reflects the actual costs incurred by the Workers Compensation Nominal Insurer and other schemes |
Costs are incurred by icare as the 'service entity' of the statutory scheme it administers, and then subsequently recovered from the schemes through 'service fees'. In the absence of documentation supported by robust supporting analysis, there is a risk of the schemes being overcharged, and the allocation of costs being in breach of legislative requirements. Recommendation: icare should ensure its approach to allocating service fees to the Workers Compensation Nominal Insurer and the other schemes it manages, is transparent and reflects actual costs. |
icare did not comply with GIPA requirements | icare did not comply with the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (GIPA) contract disclosure requirements in 2019–20 and has not complied for several years. A total of 417 contracts were identified by management as not having been published on the NSW Government’s eTendering website. The final upload of these past contracts occurred on 20 August 2020. |
Implementation of Machinery of Government (MoG) changes | MoG changes impacted the governance and business processes of some agencies. Our audits identified and reported areas for improvement in the consolidation of corporate functions following MoG implementation processes at Infrastructure NSW and in the Customer Service cluster. |
This report provides Parliament and other users of NSW Government central agencies' financial statements and the Legislature's financial statements with the results of our financial audits, observations, analyses, conclusions and recommendations.
Emergency events, such as bushfires, floods and the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted agencies in 2019–20. Our findings on nine agencies that were most impacted by recent emergency events are included throughout this report.
Refer to Appendix one for the names of all central agencies and Appendix four for the nine agencies most impacted by emergency events.
Financial reporting is an important element of good governance. Confidence and transparency in public sector decision making are enhanced when financial reporting is accurate and timely. This chapter outlines our audit observations on the financial reporting of central agencies and the Legislature for 2020, including the financial implications from recent emergency events.
Section highlights
|
Appropriate financial controls help ensure the efficient and effective use of resources and administration of agency policies. They are essential for quality and timely decision making.
This chapter outlines:
- our observations and insights from the financial statement audits of agencies in the central agencies and the Legislature
- our assessment of how well agencies adapted their systems, policies, procedures and governance arrangements in response to recent emergencies.
Section highlights
|
Actions for Volume One 2012 focusing on themes from 2011
Volume One 2012 focusing on themes from 2011
The following overview of audits from 2011 found agency restructures significantly impacted agency financial reporting processes, agencies are having difficulty establishing and enforcing compliance with their own policies and procedures, agencies experienced problems complying with regulations and providing adequate documentation to support their financial statements, the poor quality of some financial statements with 1,256 misstatements identified, 540 so significant they had to be corrected, deficiencies in information security exist across many agencies, computer system disaster recovery plans for financial systems not existing or outdated, do not align with agencies’ business recovery requirements, do not properly identify and assess critical systems and processes and testing is incomplete.
Actions for Solar Bonus Scheme
Solar Bonus Scheme
A NSW Auditor General’s Report has found that the NSW Government and its agencies grossly underestimated the cost and number of people that would install systems under the Solar Bonus Scheme.
By October 2010, the estimated cost of the Scheme, if it continued the way it was going, would have reached $3.988 billion. More than ten times the original estimate of $362 million. In response to the increased cost, the gross tariff for new applicants was reduced from 60 to 20 cents reducing the estimated cost to $1.954 billion.
It was a statutory requirement that when 50 mega watts of installed capacity was reached, the Government would review the Scheme. By the time the review was completed the installed capacity had reached 101 mega watts.
Actions for Prequalification Scheme: Performance and Management Services
Prequalification Scheme: Performance and Management Services
There have been tangible improvements in the time it takes NSW Government agencies to engage consultants through the Government’s Prequalification Scheme. The Scheme was introduced in February 2008 to improve agencies’ procurement of consultants. More than 300 service providers have been prequalified and over $300 million worth of consultancy services have been provided. Ideally agencies should know what assignments each consultant has won, for what services, what their rates are and how well they have performed. Agencies should then be free to contact other agencies before engaging a consultant.
Parliamentary reference - Report number #216 - released 28 September 2011
Actions for The Cross City Tunnel Project
The Cross City Tunnel Project
In our opinion the Government’s ‘no net cost to government’ requirement was a legitimate (but not the only possible) basis for the tunnel bid process. The Government was entitled to decide that tunnel users meet the tunnel costs. Structuring the bid process on the basis of an upfront reimbursement of costs incurred (or to be incurred) by the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) was therefore appropriate.
In our opinion, however, the Government, Treasury and the RTA did not sufficiently consider the implications of an upfront payment involving more than simple project cost reimbursement (i.e. the ‘Business Consideration Fee’ component). In addition, the RTA was wrong to change the toll escalation factor late in 2002 to compensate the tunnel operator, Cross City Motorway Pty Ltd, for additional costs.
Parliamentary reference - Report number #152 - released 31 May 2006
Actions for Agencies working together to improve services
Agencies working together to improve services
In the cases we examined, we found that agencies working together can improve services or results. However, the changes were not always as great as anticipated or had not reached maximum potential. Establishing the right governance framework and accountability requirements between partners at the start of the project is critical to success. And joint responsibility requires new funding and reporting arrangements to be developed.
Parliamentary reference - Report number #149 - released 22 March 2006