Foreign intelligence service ASIS has admitted spying without proper ministerial authority on an overseas Australian suspected of terrorism.
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The incident is raised in the latest annual report of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, tabled in federal parliament.
The report showed that during 2019/20 ASIS was linked to seven events in breach of the Inspector General's Act.
All but one of the breaches by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service related to "communications not in accordance with the privacy rules," the report said.
"One of the compliance reports ... related to a failure to obtain a ministerial authorisation," the inspector-general said.
"This case involved ASIS being engaged in activities for the purpose of producing intelligence on an overseas Australian person who was likely involved in terrorism-related activities.
"The case also involved two breaches of the privacy rules and a number of issues of administrative non-compliance."
The inspector-general said there had also been a "significant delay" between the incident being identified and reported.
ASIS told the inspector-general it would update its internal privacy rules policy, use the incident for training purposes and make other changes to ensure it did not happen again.
Australian Associated Press
