The Office of the Information Commissioner will not investigate a data breach at the University of Canberra where some staff were accidentally sent every employee's personal details.
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More than 20 staff were sent a spreadsheet containing the names, salary details, classification and average hours of every university employee on Thursday and Friday last week.
An Office of the Information Commissioner spokeswoman confirmed the University of Canberra alerted the agency to the incident on Monday.
"In deciding whether to make inquiries or offer advice and guidance in response to a notification, the Commissioner considers factors outlined in the OAIC's Privacy Regulatory Action Policy and Guide to privacy regulatory action," the spokeswoman said.
"At present, the Commissioner is not investigating this incident."
It is understood the data breach is linked to the University of Canberra's voluntary separation program, in which staff are being offered cash to resign.
Employees who inquired about their projected pay-out received the spreadsheet.
The Canberra Times is aware of at least one staff member inadvertently forwarding the information to a person outside the university.
The University of Canberra referred to a statement sent by vice-chancellor Deep Saini on Monday when further questioned about the incident.
In his statement, Professor Saini said staff who had received the email had been contacted by the university and told to delete the data. One staff member disputed this action, having not been contacted by the institution after receiving the information.
Professor Saini's statement also said the institution's IT team had cleared the data from all inboxes and had "[identified] if the email had been forwarded to any person outside the university".
"In light of the steps taken, the university is satisfied that the data breach has been remedied and that there is unlikely to be any significant risk of harm caused to employees as a result of the data breach," Professor Saini's statement said.
he Office of the Information Commissioner spokeswoman noted the University of Canberra had voluntarily reported the data breach to the agency.
"As an ACT public sector agency, the University of Canberra is not covered by the notifiable data breaches scheme unless the data breach involves individuals' tax file numbers," she said.
"As this breach did not involve TFNs the notification to the commissioner in this case was voluntary."
