183,000 licences reissued after Optus breach

Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads has reissued almost 200,000 replacement driver licences after the Optus data breach late last year.

Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey said those impacted by the data breach still had two weeks to get a free replacement.

“Over 183,000 cards have been replaced by my department, which is a huge milestone, and in the last month, there has been a significant drop in the number of impacted Optus customers visiting our customer service centres to have driver licences replaced,” he said.

“As we’ve seen a decrease in card replacement requests, free replacement of driver licences will be discontinued from 1 March. Impacted Optus customers who request a new driver licence in person on or before 28 February will still be eligible for a free card replacement.

“I’d like to say a huge thank you to our Transport and Main Roads staff, in particular our IT staff working behind the scenes, and those in our customer service centres who have been working around the clock to deal with a huge number of new licence requests.

“To give you an idea of what they achieved, we generally process around 10 licence replacements per day, but on some days during the last few months our team did almost 15,000 in one day — it’s a massive achievement and I’d like to say thank you on behalf of all Queenslanders impacted,” Bailey said.

Additional security measures were added last year to minimise the likelihood of repeat incidents and to guide the way organisations verify identity.

“Last year, we added extra security measures to safeguard Queenslanders’ identity and changed how organisations such as banks and telcos verified someone’s identity,” Bailey said.

“One of the benefits of this change is Queenslanders can now replace their card online if their driver licence details are compromised. With the added security measure in place, Optus customers don’t need to replace their driver licence because card numbers were not compromised during the breach. After paying the standard replacement fee of $82.10, Queenslanders can easily order a new card without visiting a customer service centre.

“Being able to order a replacement driver licence online means Queenslanders can take action immediately and receive their card faster. Organisations who put Queenslanders’ important information at risk should take more responsibility,” he said.

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