Some gems from the article:
"Aviation ID Australia … advise that a localised portion of our website has been intentionally accessed by an unauthorised entity," managing director Ian Barker said.
That sentence alone from their MD indicates that he just has no idea how sensitive data should be stored securely stored. Websites are just a medium for users to access their data,
not the data itself. If hacking a website gives the culprits straightforward access to the data, then these people have no idea what they are doing and shouldn't be processing ASIC applications in the first place!
Why are ASIC applications outsourced anyway? Isn't it only obvious that this is mitigating the standards it strives to achieve?
Now from the following two quotes:
This is not the first time Australia's aviation security system has come under scrutiny, with revelations in the past that people have been granted ASICs despite having criminal records or a history of association with radical Islamic groups such as Al Qaeda.
I'd like someone (preferably a CASA statistician – hire one if you haven't yet, and give them a C-level role) to explain to me just to what measure they perceive aviation safety to be affected by such preposterously sloppy work by their contractors.
In my humble view, I feel that aviation is undergoing a much greater safety risk by allowing criminals with shoddy beliefs around airports and airliners that carry passengers in the tens or hundreds at a time than by imposing unaffordable maintenance standards on single engine aircraft, lest they
all fall out of the skies (simultaneously).
Statistically it would take 100 to 200 single engine aircraft to crash (with fatalities!) to match the human cost of that of a single airliner with 200 souls, a statistical null-event, even within a whole year.
Last remark: security checks on domestic flights in Australia is a laughable joke (I don't think the wording can be strong enough). There's no ID check, scanners let just about anything go through. The only thing they insist on is that you leave your coffee at the gate to increase their onboard sales.