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Two junior EY staff have been charged with accessing the Australian prime minister’s banking details while on secondment to the country’s largest lender.
The Australian Federal Police said on Tuesday it had charged two men from Sydney with allegedly accessing restricted personal Commonwealth Bank of Australia data belonging to a federal parliamentarian.
The politician in question is Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, according to local media reports.
EY and the prime minister’s office declined to comment, while CBA said: “It is not appropriate for us to comment on individual contractor matters.”
The incident is the latest example of alleged illegal or unethical data access to be linked to a Big Four consultancy in Australia.
Several KPMG partners, including the chair and chief executive, have left the firm in recent weeks after failing to adequately investigate a whistleblower’s claims that senior audit staff accessed confidential client data to win new business.
PwC also replaced its top management in Australia three years ago after a tax partner leaked confidential government data to colleagues who used it to try to win new contracts.
The EY incident relates to two men, aged 21 and 25, who allegedly abused their access to banking systems.
A person with direct knowledge of the situation said the two men were EY graduate trainees who had been seconded to CBA to work on a technology project.
Both had been given training by EY and the bank on data privacy and access.
A police statement said the 21-year-old had been charged with one count of unauthorised access or modification to restricted data and one count of using a carriage service to publish or distribute personal data.
The 25-year-old was charged with unauthorised access to restricted data.
Both men, who no longer work for EY, were bailed after being charged in March and were due to appear in court in Sydney on Tuesday.
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