Australian telco customers have been warned to be alert for suspicious activity as police investigate reports that personal contact information is being offered for sale after being leaked by call centre staff in India. Telstra and Vodafone are urging customers to report any fraudulent activity after Fairfax Media reported on Wednesday that personal details of customers are being offered for sale by a Mumbai-based security firm, AI Solutions, which obtained them illegally from call centre operators. Clear-cut definition of de-identified data critical in legislation: Pilgrim Department of Finance to rebuild two-year-old IT system Turnbull's DTA to establish a whole-of-government program management office Vodafone continues losing customers as Telstra, Optus, Amaysim gain: Kantar Both telecommunications companies are aware of allegations AI Solutions is on-selling the contact numbers, addresses, and other private details. The details could potentially be used for identity theft, other privacy breaches or fraudulent activities, and by cold callers. Speaking at Telstra Investor Day on Thursday, Telstra CEO Andy Penn said the telco does not do business with AI Solutions.

Domino's has on Wednesday successfully completed the delivery of a pizza to a customer in New Zealand, using a drone as its mode of transport. The unmanned aerial vehicle, DRU Drone by Flirtey, was autonomously controlled using GPS navigation, delivered to the yard of a residence in Whangaparaoa, 25km north of Auckland. Domino's Group CEO and managing director Don Meij said he believes drone delivery will be an essential component of the organisation's pizza delivery process. Clear-cut definition of de-identified data critical in legislation: Pilgrim Department of Finance to rebuild two-year-old IT system Turnbull's DTA to establish a whole-of-government program management office Vodafone continues losing customers as Telstra, Optus, Amaysim gain: Kantar "We will be conducting more delivery flights to customers from the Whangaparaoa store this week, and will use the information we gather to expand drone flights to a larger DRU Drone by Flirtey delivery area next year," Meij said. "We expect DRU Drone by Flirtey to be an essential addition to our delivery fleet."

Australia's descent into a federal government-backed biometric future began on Wednesday, with the first three agencies to be on board the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the Australian Federal Police (AFP), and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP). The first tranche of data to be swapped by the new Face Verification Service will be citizenship images, with visa, passport, and driver licence photos to follow. In August last year, the Attorney-General's Department (AGD) said access would be expanded to include the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Defence, and the AGD. Clear-cut definition of de-identified data critical in legislation: Pilgrim Department of Finance to rebuild two-year-old IT system Turnbull's DTA to establish a whole-of-government program management office Vodafone continues losing customers as Telstra, Optus, Amaysim gain: Kantar The AU$18.5 million system is designed to replace existing manual, ad-hoc facial image sharing arrangements between agencies to verify identities, and avoids the creation of a centralised database by agencies receiving queries running image searches against their own databases, an AGD fact sheet [PDF] claims. "Often, this response will be a simple'yes' or'no' to indicate whether two images are of the same person," AGD said.