Albanese, Ley and others have details published on US website
The phone numbers of some of Australia’s most high-profile politicians, including the prime minister and opposition leader, have been made public via an American website that uses artificial intelligence to scrape and compile contact profiles.
The publication of individual details, including phone numbers and emails, on the website, which this imprint has chosen to remain anonymous, has raised concerns within the government. He ordered the security services to investigate because some MPs took action to have their profiles closed.
The Prime Minister’s phone number is available online. Credit: James Brickwood
Speaking in Parliament House on Tuesday morning, acting prime minister Richard Marles said: “We are clearly aware of this. We have informed the authorities and it is being worked on but obviously there are concerns.”
The site also lists the numbers of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, as well as other public figures such as former prime minister Scott Morrison, former foreign secretary Julie Bishop, and other world leaders, including US President Donald Trump’s business number.
A spokesman for Ley said: “We became aware of this issue when the media contacted us yesterday. This is clearly concerning and we have reached out to LinkedIn to understand what is happening here. We await their response. We have asked them to remove the information from the website.”
Loading
The US-based website offers users an opt-out form to remove their profile, and contact information is removed within a week of the request being made. When checked by this masthead some of the numbers were found to be incorrect.
LinkedIn was suggested by the website as a possible source of scraped phone numbers, but a spokesperson for the site said they had seen no evidence that their data had been breached. “Our policies are clear that third-party companies are prohibited from obtaining personal data and using it in ways our members do not consent to and that these companies are not affiliated with LinkedIn,” a spokesperson said.
The website and the prime minister’s office were contacted for comment.
