SYDNEY: The NSW Government says it is planning to establish a “permanent identity recovery unit” to focus on supporting the victims of attacks like the recent Service NSW break-in, which has seen the State Government agency reveal that no fewer than 186,000 Service NSW customers have had their personal information stolen.

Service NSW is an agency of the NSW Customer Service Department, offering “one-stop access” to government services via online, phone or in-person at its service centres across the State. But it seems that information provided by customers was not properly protected.

Stung by the ensuing widespread criticism of the lack of protection, NSW Minister Victor Dominello said he had been aware of the break-ins “about four months ago”.

He now says the victims of the attacks are receiving “hypercare”, though this may news to some of them.

The minister said the attack “primarily involved information contained in scanned attachments to internal e-mails. For example, paper application forms and paper copies of driver licences.

“With e-mail attachments, we have digitised the delivery but not the parcel,” he said, though it was not immediately clear just what this means.

Dominello added that the NSW Government is planning to establish “a permanent identity recovery unit to focus on supporting the victims of attacks like these”.