I have been approached by a colleague who has slipped through the looking glass and is now stuck at the mad hatters tea party for eternity and is destined to cycle back and forth between the MRT and DIBP.

Here is the story so far ( we have the permission of the client to publish these details):

Dear XXXX,

Agents have come to me reporting emails from the OMARA that look something like this:

Dear XXXXXXX (agent)

The Office of the MARA is monitoring the conduct of registered migration agents to verify agents' compliance with the Code of Conduct.

Some of the 10,000 asylum seekers whose personal details including “a) full names; b) gender; c) citizenship; d) date of birth; e) period of immigration detention; f) location; g) boat arrival details; h) reasons why the individual was deemed to be unlawful” were accidentally published by the department of the immigration are now demanding that they be granted visas as the breach of privacy has exposed them to danger should they return home.

Privacy Commissioner Mr Timothy Pilgrim who is investigating the matter found that the Department of Immigration was in breach of important privacy principles under existing Australian legislation. He explained in his findings that he had received many complaints from individuals affected by the breach and said that it will be possible for him to award a financial remedy, provided that the affected individuals can establish that they have suffered loss of some kind. The Commissioner is continuing to investigate those complaints.

In the meantime, other asylum seekers are pursuing the matter through the courts claiming that they cannot return home due to the dangers they now face due to the privacy breach by the department of immigration.

Tasmanian Labor senator Lisa Singh, is currently seeking to revive laws, which were due to pass under the last government, that would enforce businesses and government to notify the public about data breaches, according to a report in The Australian.

“As people who were already in ¬vulnerable situations who could be ¬targeted, and have their families and friends targeted, by oppressive groups or governments, the leak of this -information over a period of eight and a half days on the department’s website and 16 days on the Internet Archive was especially worrying,” Senator Singh said. She said legislating mandatory disclosure requirements with penalties would have a much greater effect on creating a culture of protection and responsibility around personal data than otherwise would be the case.

“Currently there is no obligation on public and private sector organisations to notify people whose details they have leaked or accidentally made public on the net or elsewhere” said Senator Singh.

According to Patrick Gunning of King & Wood Mallesons, “The Commissioner found that the Department had contravened Information Privacy Principle 4(a) – the security principle – because the Department’s policies and practices failed to adequately address known security risks. The Department’s policies recognised the risk of inadvertent publication of personal information, but staff had not been made aware of why it was important to follow the policies, and how to do so.”

DIBP claims to have now reviewed its internal processes and put in place measures to prevent such a breach from occurring again while it awaits further decisions by the Courts and the Privacy Commissioner.

Will minimum required test scores for TOEFL iBT and PTE Academic tests be benchmarked against IELTS equivalencies?

DIBPs priority processing arrangements generally categorise skilled migration applications into 5 groups giving regional employer sponsored visas the highest processing priority. While the top groups can have the visas processed within months, those in group 5 can wait well over 5 years without any indication of a time-frame as to when their applications may be processed.

It almost looks like after accepting valid applications and the visa charges, DIBP has just about simply forgotten about processing the applications categorised in group 5. Is DIBP hoping  that if they make these applicants wait long enough the applicants will simply give up and go away allowing DIBP to pocket the application fee for doing nothing?

Legislation allows the Minister several mechanisms to ensure visa grants are managed in line with the annual planning level. These mechanisms can either restrict or increase the level of visa grants. This excuse is often cited when the issue is queried. A recent response on the issue from DIBP stated outright, “The Department is unable to give specific timeframes for when individual applications will be finalised,…” [http://migrationalliance.com.au/immigration-daily-news/entry/2014-09-priority-group-5-applications-for-886-and-176-visas-dibp-update.html]

Upon receipt of a valid application, DIBP surely must have an obligation to process an application within a reasonable time-frame or inform the applicants of the likely time-frame. In the alternative, DIBP should at least allow applicants who wish to withdraw their applications to do so with a full refund. Perhaps this may help speed things up for those who choose to wait.

Some estimates (unverified) state that there are over 40,000 applicants in the priority 5 group, with some applicants still waiting after 5 years with no indication of when their applications will be processed.