Queues are growing at South Australian licensing locations as victims of the Optus data breach scramble to protect their personal information but the government has urged people to be patient.
The South Australia government yesterday announced it would be waiving the fee for people who needed to replace their drivers licences as part of the data leak, which exposed a large number of customers' personal details, including their licence and passport numbers.
South Australians need to visit one of 21 Service SA locations around the state to change their licence numbers.
A Fleurieu Peninsula woman, who did not wish to be named, said she spent three hours making a trip to the nearest Service SA location at Seaford Meadows to change her drivers licence number.
"When I first driving past the Service SA building, the queue was out the door," she said.
"It took 40 minutes from when I get in.
"The staff was doing a really good job. The [drivers licence] number was changed immediately."
The woman said Optus's response so far was "pretty lacking in effect" and the South Australian government had been left to foot the bill for the telecommunication giant's mistake.
"We need more Service SA offices, or even a pop-up centre in regional SA, like in Victor Harbor," she said.
"There would be elderly people who would not be able to travel 53km to a Service SA location."
She said she felt "stuck" in a contract with Optus which she would have to pay more than $1,000 to get out of.
Another woman called Rayleen was one of the Optus hack victims trying to change her drivers licence details at the Service SA Sefton Plaza location.
"When you go out of your house, you lock all your doors, you shut all your front doors lock them all and put your alarm on," she said.
"But what Optus has done to us… they haven't even locked the front door."
Department for Transport and Infrastructure service delivery manager Chris McArdle urged people to be patient.
"Our Marion, Elizabeth and Seaford Meadows centres are very busy at the moment, but all centres are suffering from high loads and we're working as quickly as we can to manage those," he said.
Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin yesterday said the carrier was working with authorities to retrieve customers' data.
"We've also been working behind the scenes with all the licensing authorities to see what we can do to reissue licences in the case where they believe that that's necessary," she said.
