The head of the agency overseeing the national disability insurance scheme can't say if its privacy policy was breached when a participant's information was sent to an email account linked to a bank.
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Acting National Disability Insurance Agency CEO Vicki Rundle has confirmed to a Senate estimates hearing the chair of the group's board continues to use her email account from former employer Macquarie Group.
Helen Nugent was a non-executive director of Macquarie Group before heading the board.
Ms Rundle said she was aware of a media report from 10 days ago that information about a NDIS participant with epilepsy, who died last May while waiting for funding, was sent to Dr Nugent's Macquarie email account.
Australian Financial Review journalists had seen the email.
"If there's been a breach of privacy, if there has, it's very likely that's been a breach of privacy on the NDIA side, not Dr Nugent's side," Ms Rundle told senators in Canberra on Thursday.
"It takes quite awhile" to go through the processes to clarify if it's a breach of privacy, she added, saying it was a priority.
Ms Rundle was unable to answer how many emails about the disability scheme were sent to Dr Nugent's Macquarie email.
She was also unable to say which email address Dr Nugent gave to people, including participants, when meeting them in her capacity as chair of the NDIA board.
"If people in the community choose to email Dr Nugent on her Macquarie email address, I don't see that that's at all unusual, I'm trying to work out what the actual issue might be," she said.
Dr Nugent is "very scrupulous" about her email accounts, the NDIA CEO added.
Labor senator Murray Watt was far from impressed.
"At face value this seems to be a clear case that someone outside the NDIA has accessed information the NDIA holds about a participant without that person's consent," he said.
"The NDIA chair - the very highest position in the organisation - is in breach of your privacy policy."
Senators also heard Dr Nugent privately pays to work out of Macquarie Group's Martin Place offices in Sydney.
Macquarie Group has put its hand up to build disability housing, which would be used by national disability insurance scheme participants.
But Dr Nugent has no involvement with Macquarie's dealings with the matter, senators were told.
Australian Associated Press
