Latitude Financial Services data breach
13 April 2023
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is aware of a cyber incident impacting Latitude Financial Services.
Copies of approximately 103,000 identity documents have been stolen from Latitude Financial. This includes a small number of passports.
Latitude Financial Services is contacting impacted customers directly and continues to investigate the matter to determine the full extent of the cyber-attack.
Foreign passports were also compromised through this cyberattack. If Latitude Financial Services have advised you that your foreign passport information was compromised, you should contact the government that issued the passport for advice on what to do.
Impacted passports are still safe to use for international travel. Your passport number cannot be used to obtain a new passport. Robust controls are used to protect passports from identity takeover, including sophisticated facial recognition technology. Further information on how your passport may be impacted can be found on the APO website(link is external).
Advice on safeguarding your personal information can be found on the APO’s webpage on protecting against scams and identity theft(link is external).
Customers can also seek help from IDCare(link is external), a not-for-profit organisation that specialises in providing advice and support to the Australian community in responding to identity theft.
Advice on how to protect yourself and your family from cyber security incidents is available on the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s (ACSC) webpage at: www.cyber.gov.au(link is external)
Request for Information (RFI) for the provision of administrative services for the Australian Government Department of Home Affairs
The Australia Government Department of Home Affairs has released an RFI on AusTender titled Service Delivery Partners: Delivering Administrative Services for the Department of Home Affairs (HOMEAFFAIRS/2083/RFI). The RFI seeks information on best practice service approaches and technologies to support and extend the Department’s overseas service delivery. It aims to identify opportunities that will enable the Department to meet increasing future demand for services.
Reopening our border during COVID-19 will see an increase in demand for departmental services along with evolving integrity threats and traveller expectations for more efficient, digitally enabled services. To meet these challenges the Department is examining opportunities to increase the involvement of Service Delivery Partners in the delivery of its overseas transactional and administrative services.
If you are a supplier of application support, biometric collection and/or verification services (as well as other services as described in the RFI), the Department is keen to hear from you. The RFI is not a procurement. Whilst the Department has not yet committed to any future procurement activity, next steps may include a procurement process commencing in 2022.