Workforce Australia has included people’s real phone numbers in fake résumés shown to JobSeeker recipients and published online.
The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations has removed one phone number and is reviewing all the government employment service’s learning modules to see if others have been inadvertently included.
Welfare recipients are required to do certain tasks as part of Workforce Australia’s points-based activation system. These include applying for jobs, doing volunteer work and completing online learning modules for Workforce Australia (which replaced jobactive).
A module titled “Résumé templates: because you don’t have to start from scratch” included a seemingly fake CV but with a real phone number. Crikey confirmed this with the phone number holder, whose name we have withheld for their privacy and whose identity is different from the name listed on the CV. This person had been receiving phone calls as a consequence of their number being listed on the module.
Australian Unemployed Workers Union officer Jeremy Poxon told Crikey he was able to confirm another two phone numbers belonged to real people.
The department told Crikey it had apologised, removed the module from the Workforce Australia website and will audit all other modules: “The supplier of the online learning modules advised the department the phone number was not active at the time the materials were being developed.”
The department did not offer a further on-the-record statement. Crikey understands that an external supplier created the modules and told the department the numbers were not active when they were prepared before the creation of Workforce Australia in mid-2022.
Three of five modules have been removed from Workforce Australia’s website and the department is investigating whether this constitutes a privacy breach.
In the future, Crikey understands, Workforce Australia’s learning modules will not include contact details.
