Greater Western Water has revealed serious data problems in its new billing system that led to at least 320 customer privacy breaches.
The utility — formed through the merger of City West Water and Western Water — replaced both legacy billing systems with a new platform called CustomerPlace. But inaccurate customer details and a rush to meet go-live deadlines caused major failures.
Bills sent to wrong addresses
By March, close to 200 customers had already reported receiving bills meant for others. An assessment by the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC) later confirmed 320 privacy incidents, though it warned the real number is likely higher. (PDF)
The problems stemmed from inaccurate and outdated information in the old systems, including dummy accounts and mismatched data fields. Greater Western Water said it applied 81 validation checks during migration, but some were removed to meet the project deadline.
One key oversight was failing to validate customers’ preferred billing methods. Accounts that had been set to e-billing or BPAY defaulted to postal mail in the new system.
Large-scale fixes underway
So far, the utility has manually corrected about 320,000 records. It also had to manage additional complications, including tariff changes during the project and incomplete data for testing.
OVIC noted that deadlines were prioritised over accuracy, calling it a warning for other organisations.
“Reducing the robustness of data validation may have more negative impacts than a project delay,” the commissioner said.
Utility concedes failures
Greater Western Water chair Lisa Neville admitted the utility had “fallen short of the standards our customers expect, and those we hold ourselves to”. She said data and privacy processes have since been overhauled.
OVIC chose not to carry out a full investigation but urged all organisations to put data quality and privacy above go-live targets.