This article mentions family violence. If you or anyone you know needs support, contact 1800Respect on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800respect.org.au.
When Tina* fled a relationship with her abusive partner in 2017, she was very careful to make sure he didn't know her new address.
"It was a very bad situation and I didn't want that person to know where we were at the time. Because my name change hadn't gone through yet, my electricity account was still connected to my old name and my new address," she says.
Each time she contacted her energy retailer, the ease with which they would give out her new address without verifying she was who she said she was made her feel deeply unsafe and scared that her former partner could discover where she lived.
It really kind of heightened and activated those extra fears for me at that time
Tina*
"They just said, 'you live at this address, on this street, is that right?'. It's lucky it was just me, because if it had been someone posing as me they would only need to know my name and date of birth and they would know my new address."
"It really kind of heightened and activated those extra fears for me at that time," she adds.
Potentially fatal consequences
Domestic and family violence abusers using energy and water retailers to discover the location of former partners is one of the focus areas of a new report commissioned by the Essential Services Commission (ESC) in Victoria.
The report, Designed to Disrupt, highlights how inadequate privacy protections by retailers can have "potentially fatal consequences" for victims.
Over the past year, the ESC fined energy retailers Origin Energy and Engie $1.6 and $1.7 million, respectively, for failing to adhere to domestic violence provisions. But report author Catherine Fitzpatrick believes that many more essential services providers are also failing victims, and that more enforcement actions are likely in order.
"I've called for a national investigation into the privacy breaches, because the reporting of these breaches is inconsistent and it's a bit of a patchwork because there's a number of different regulators that businesses would need to report to," she says.
"Every regulator needs to come together to share the information, to understand the scale of the issue, and to do this before it's too late, before somebody is seriously injured or even potentially killed."
ESC Commissioner Gerard Brody agrees a national collaborative approach is needed.
"We want to be providing consistent safeguards, so that it's simple and clear, not only for consumers, survivors and others, but it also makes it simpler to comply for businesses if there's clear standards about what's required nationally," he says.
Controlling the accounts
Another way in which energy and water retailer accounts can be misused by perpetrators of family violence is the controlling of joint accounts, refusing to pay bills, and racking up debts in the victim's name when they no longer live at the property.
This was a big issue for Jacinta, who remained at the family property after an apprehended violence order (AVO) was issued against her partner, which stipulated no contact was allowed.
Unbeknown to her, her gas bill, which was in his name, had gone unpaid until the service was disconnected and she and her children had to go without hot water for five days. It was eventually reconnected under a new account.
Jacinta had a similar issue with the internet, which was also in her former partner's name. She sent him the money to pay the NBN bill, but he refused to do so and the service was cut.
"There needs to be some common sense. If you live at the property and can prove you have lived there for years, you can prove there is an AVO, these companies need to let you access the accounts," she says.
Fitzpatrick says that more energy and water companies should offer waivers when debts were built up by abusive partners. The average debt held by victims is a comparatively modest $1300.
Fitzpatrick's report points out that these businesses need to understand the role they can play in enabling the continuation of abuse and take steps to prevent that from happening.
*Not her real name.
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