New CCC Commissioner warns private information being accessed in public sector to stalk former partners

WA’s new corruption boss says there are increasing fears about the rise of public sector workers and police accessing private data on work computers to stalk their former partners — or to sell it to third parties. Corruption and Crime Commissioner Michael Corboy also raised his “deep concern” about the level of corruption on WA’s local governments, particularly in the regions. Mr Corboy officially took up the top job on Monday, having acted in the role since his predecessor John McKechnie retired in June. In an exclusive interview with The West Australian, Mr Corboy said one of the corruption watchdog’s rising concerns was the misuse of personal information by public servants, including stalking ex-partners by using information they could access at their workplace. “We’ve received allegations at times that people who are in the position to be able to access a lot of data have sold data, more commonly, people trying to find out things about somebody’s personal circumstances,” he said. “Man breaks up with partner, man then has access to information about partner on computer system and tries to find out stuff about partner a year after they’ve broken up — partner has got a new partner, man tries to find information about new partner, and so on. “It’s accessing information, most commonly for personal use, trying to find out information for a personal use and it can then get more and more serious, using that information to stalk somebody, to harass somebody, or even to try and sell information.” The concern comes as Mr Corboy said he wanted the commission to ensure policing of family and domestic violence was done correctly in the wake of the Floreat murders in 2024, where the CCC reviewed accusations of misconduct by police before and after the shooting. The CCC receives more than 3000 complaints every year with around half relating to police, according to Mr Corboy. The vast majority of cases are sent back to the departments from which they came to investigate themselves with CCC oversight. Mr Corboy also pointed to a focus on local governments — especially ones in the regions. “We have a concern about some aspects of regional councils, their ability to govern the process by which they procure goods and services, undertake big capital works and projects,” he said. While Mr Corboy said he was warned about the all-consuming nature of investigating local government when he took on the role by his predecessor, it was already one of his major concerns. “His (Mr McKechnie’s) parting words were things like ‘you want to be careful about getting involved in local government, it’s a rabbit hole from which you will never emerge’,” he said. “We immediately then launched some investigations into local government and at the moment, I have a fairly deep concern about some issues in local government, particularly in regional councils.” Mr Corboy had been deputy commissioner since July 2024, becoming the first person to hold the newly-created title. He will now hold the top role for a term of five years, in which he says he plans to implement a more proactive approach to investigations. “There are two objectives, one is to try and maximise our impact in the public sector and in the work that we do overseeing the police,” Mr Corboy said. “Secondly, is to probably become a bit more proactive and not entirely reactive to whatever allegations come through the door.” He said in an ideal world the agency would have more capacity for intelligence gathering. “The thing that I’d like if we can get the resources and the money to be able to do it, is to enhance our intelligence capacity which is consistent with being more proactive,” he said. “That we are gathering intelligence about what is happening, either in terms of misconduct risks or in terms of criminal activity which might generate either unexplained wealth or criminal benefit.” Before entering the CCC, Mr Corboy was a Supreme Court justice for 13 years, retiring in 2023. Prior to that, he spent decades as a partner in law firms and as a barrister. Mr Corboy said his later experience as a judge mostly handling crime cases helped him prepare for the investigative work of the CCC. “Every lawyer learns a discipline about the application of logic and common sense to a body of evidence to get to a finding,” he said. “When we do a report then that’s not that different to writing a judgment as a judge. “You’ve got a whole lot of evidence, you’ve got issues that have to be determined, you reason your way through to a conclusion on those issues by analysing the evidence, that process is the same as writing a judgment.”