Australia demands Optus pay for new customer ID documents

By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s federal and state governments have called for Optus to pay for replacing passports and driver’s licenses after 9.8 million of the telecommunications company’s customers had personal data stolen by computer hackers. The Australian government has blamed lax cybersecurity at Optus for last week’s unprecedented breach of the personal information of current and former customers. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rejected opposition lawmakers’ calls for the government to waive the costs of replacing compromised Optus customers’ passports. Albanese told Parliament that Optus should pay, not taxpayers. Optus did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Different states have had varying responses to customer’s requests for ID replacements.