Firearms owners in the Moreton police region north of Brisbane, which includes Woodford, Kilcoy and Bribie Island and is headquartered in Caboolture, yesterday received an email from the Queensland Police Service with the subject line “weapons audits”.
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It explained that is was a “friendly reminder of your obligations under the Weapons Act about correct storage of your weapons” following “a number of break and enters within the Moreton Police District where a substantial number of firearms were stolen”.
However, the email included the email addresses of all 500 recipients, information that could be used to work out the physical addresses and other details of firearms owners.
The police service has since sent another email to the firearms owners asking them to delete the first email and apologising for the error.
“Dear recipient, earlier today an email was sent from our Crime Prevention Unit, Caboolture Police to a number of individuals with an overall strategy of sharing information and ensuring the security of weapons is optimally maintained, compliant with weapons licensing requirements. Regrettably, an error occurred in that individual email addresses were visible in the email,” District Officer Superintendent John Hallam wrote in the second email.
He did not write the earlier email.
Superintendent Hallam asked the firearms owners to delete the earlier email and provided details of how to make a privacy complaint.
The National Shooting Council said: “The current situation, whether accidental or not, has now placed each of those firearm owners in a compromised position.”
The Shooters Union Australia said it had asked Queensland Police Minister Mark Ryan to investigate the breach.
