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Vodafone turns self in to cops over journo phone records hack

Oz regulators and authorities promise complete co-operation in privacy probe

Vodafone's Australian outpost has had a change of heart and will co-operate with local authorities, after it admitted that an employee had trawled through a journalist's text messages and call records.

As we reported over the weekend, in 2011 Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) was the subject of media reports suggesting partners and staff were sharing passwords for a portal that provided access to customer data.

In the light of those reports, Vodafone confessed (PDF) that a staffer had rifled through the phone records and text messages of a customer – a customer who just so happened to have been a journalist who had written a negative story about Vodafone.

On Sunday, Fairfax reporter Natalie O'Brien said that the hacking of her phone had been a "creepy, nauseating experience".

The carrier said in a statement (PDF) on Monday that its CEO Iñaki Berroeta had apologised to O'Brien.

The mobile operator said:

Current VHA management is taking this matter extremely seriously and is reporting it to NSW Police and Australian Federal Police. We have also updated the Privacy Commissioner and the Australian Communications and Media Authority about the matter.

Vodafone added that it would cooperate fully with the regulators and cops.

The use of the term “current VHA management” in the company's statement appeared to be an attempt to distance Vodafone from previous executives' handling of the situation.

VHA was formed when Vodafone Australia and Hutchison Telecom merged their Australian operations after the firms concluded that holding third place in the local market was preferable to a bun-fight over the fourth spot.

The company has 5.3 million subscribers – a rebound after the privacy scandal and a significant set of network outages dubbed “Vodafail”. ®

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