The defence department has assured senators all data held by a telco where a Chinese investment consortium has a controlling interest is secure.
One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts quizzed defence heads at a Senate estimates hearing about why the Commonwealth extended a contract with Global Switch after Chinese investment consortium Elegant Jubilee took over.
“So it’s not a case of the fox looking after the henhouse?” he said.
“What is the risk of the Chinese accessing (the data), because they’re pretty good hackers?”
Acting chief information officer Geoff Goedecke said there was no risk of compromise and a higher level of security than is necessary is being afforded to the facility.
Mr Goedecke said physical controls including it being a fully manned facility, CCTV cameras and alarms were all in place on top of additional cyber security controls.
“From a defence perspective, there aren’t risks relating to (Chinese access),” he told Senate estimates.
“It is not Chinese ownership. The Commonwealth has complete control of the facility both from a physical perspective and … from an ICT and security perspective.”
Defence secretary Greg Moriarty said the department would remove “absolutely any risk”.
“All of the highly sensitive information is long gone,” he said.
All sensitive data was moved out by June 2020 and processes are in place to remove all data by 2025 which coincides with the end of the current lease, he said.
The process started in 2018 after Elegant Jubilee acquired an additional two per cent stake in Global Switch, in addition to its 49 per cent, in December 2017.
Mr Goedecke said the amount and complexity of the data meant it was impossible to move over a short period of time.
Only some of the “less sensitive data”, such as administrative and logistics data, remains, he said.
“There is a great deal of reliance on defence continuity that requires a stage approach to remove this stuff,” he said.
The defence officials confirmed there had been no indication of any compromise of the facility or data.
Australian Associated Press
