Drug, paternity test records exposed

Transaction records of Australians who purchased paternity and drug and alcohol tests were exposed on public web pages for almost a year.

Customer names and addresses were published alongside product information after Medvet Laboratories, Australia’s largest drug and alcohol testing organisation owned by South Australia’s Rann Government, exposed its online shopping store on a public server.

Medvet shutdown the store after the company was informed by The Weekend Australian.

But records were still accessible at the time of writing and appeared to have been exposed as early as August last year according to snapshot date records on Google's cache service.

Medvet Laboratories managing director Greg Johansen said test results and financial details were not exposed.

“On becoming aware of this Medvet Laboratories immediately closed the web store and we have initiated the necessary steps to have the information removed from the internet,” Johansen said.

“The Medvet Laboratories board has instructed that an independent investigation is undertaken immediately into how this has occurred, who is affected and what can be done to address it. Once we have all the facts we will contact the clients whose details have been published to the internet.”

The records of at least one paternity test were particularly sensitive. The self collect DNA paternity test was designed for use by "assumed father and child [with] the mother optional".