Home affairs data breach may have exposed personal details of 700,000 migrants

Exclusive: Privacy experts say the breach in the SkillsSelect platform, which affects data going back to 2014, was very serious'

Privacy experts have blasted the home affairs department for a data breach revealing the personal details of 774,000 migrants and people aspiring to migrate to Australia, including partial names and the outcome of applications.

At a time the federal government is asking Australians to trust the security of data collected by its Covid-Safe contact tracing app, privacy experts are appalled by the breach, which they say is just the latest in a long line of cybersecurity blunders.