Telco giant Vodafone Hutchison Australia has admitted that an employee illegally accessed the mobile phone records of Fairfax Media investigative journalist Natalie O'Brien.

Vodaphone head of fraud COlin Yates admitted in an email from 2012, "If the issue relating to breaching the reporter's privacy by searching her private call records and text messages gets into the public domain, this could have serious consequences given it is a breach of the Australian Telecommunications Act."

NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Stephen Blanks called on the government to investigate the incident as a matter of priority.

"What's extraordinary is that the regulatory system is inefficient to find out about this blatant breach of law and one has to bear in mind that Vodafone's business is entirely dependent on a government license," Mr Blanks said. "It's very disturbing that one telecommunications carrier thinks nothing of breaching the privacy of its customers in order to find out information of commercial advantage to it."

Article: Vodafone admits employee accessed Fairfax journalist Natalie O'Brien's mobile phone records

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald