2 hours ago
2
Optus sent two emails to an incorrect address at the Department of Communications, alerting it of the Triple Zero outage on September 18, despite the telco giant updating its system a week earlier to have emails sent to the department’s correct email channels.
Three people died during the Triple Zero outage while unable to contact emergency services.
Emails sent from Optus were put to the wrong email address. Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong
Appearing before a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday, department officials confirmed that Optus was notified of the email change a week before the outage on September 11, and had updated its systems to reflect the change, but still sent emails about the outage to the wrong address.
The two emails were sent seven minutes apart to a defunct email address and were not found until the department later scoured its systems. The emails were also sent to the office of the Minister for Communications Anika Wells; however, the specific recipient was redacted in inquiry documents.
“I would not consider notification complete if it’s sent to the wrong place. So notification occurs when it is given to the right recipient. In this case, it was not,” deputy secretary James Chisholm told the Senate committees.
Kathleen Silleri, assistant secretary of the emergency communications section of the department, said all telcos, including Optus, were aware of the correct email address, noting the telco had “been using the correct email address for every other outage”.
Optus suffered a catastrophic 13-hour outage on September 18, when hundreds of Triple Zero calls failed across the country, and three people died. The government moved on Tuesday to legislate a Triple Zero custodian to oversee the system, but faced criticism for taking 18 months to produce the legislation after an independent inquiry into a 2024 Optus outage.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young grilled Chisholm on the fact that the email remained unread for over 24 hours, as department officials confirmed several times that the email inbox was not monitored. Officials only found the communications from Optus after they were notified of the outage on September 19 by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
The department said it had told telcos that the old email address would still be monitored, but that it should not be relied upon as a form of communication.
Loading
“That communication … was sent to the wrong address, which we have told industry a number of times is not to be used as a source of notification. We were not notified of the outage properly, and in this case it was by the regulator, until the Friday afternoon,” Chisholm said.
Hanson-Young accused the department of providing a misleading opening statement to the Senate, saying they were providing conflicting evidence by saying they had been notified by the Optus emails, but also that the communication had not been seen until after ACMA reached out.
“Because of questioning we now find out that the department does not believe they were notified. [Emails] sat there for more than 24 hours without anyone knowing about it. Why is it in your opening statement that you were notified?” Hanson-Young asked.
Chisholm repeatedly refused to answer a question from Hanson-Young on why an email forwarding system was not set up from the defunct email address. The deputy secretary said that was not the issue, rather it was Optus’ failure to notify the correct address.
Loading
Liberal senator Sarah Henderson said she was “astounded” that Chisholm was not able to tell the inquiry when the defunct email address was retired, saying “this is looking like a debacle”. Chisholm rejected the characterisation.
“The failure on Optus’ part here was not to send the notification to the regulatory requirement mailbox,” assistant secretary Samuel Grunhard said. “We certainly would have acted had we been aware that they’d reported with Triple Zero.”
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.
Most Viewed in Politics
Loading
