Yahoo Finance Australian workers' salaries exposed after MYOB glitch
A bunch of Australians found themselves staring at how much a colleague earned for the 2018 financial year, after a software bungle sent the sensitive data to the incorrect employees.
Individual payment summaries, which detail how much a person earned during a financial year, are sent from the employer to all its staff for tax return purposes.
Unfortunately, for employers that use accounting software MYOB, the company has admitted that its payroll system AccountRight Live sent out payment summaries to the wrong people during June – 220 times.
"On 28 June we discovered a small number of people received incorrect payment summaries sent between 1 June and midday 28 June 2019,” the company stated.
“We are sincerely sorry for the situation, as well as the frustrations experienced by all our AccountRight Live customers caused by the delay in sending the payment summary emails,”
The glitch forced the Australian-origin firm to close down its system during the very busy end-of-financial-year period.
The company said that it understands the incident would have "an impact on the individuals affected".
The incorrect recipients were contacted to help them "safely and correctly dispose of the misdirected payment summary emails", and the employees whose sensitive information was exposed were also being supported.
The data breach has been reported to the Australian Taxation Office and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
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