Defence signs over storage of classified data to China-owned firm

Scott Morrison has confirmed storage of Department of Defence secrets has been moved to a Chinese-owned company.

Defence has quietly signed over the storage of its secrets to a Chinese-owned company, prompting fears valuable restricted details of our military’s inner workings could now be accessed by the foreign power.

For years, data storage firm Global Switch has been tasked with storing the nation’s military secrets at facilities in Ultimo in inner Sydney, but that was to change when in 2016 the London-based parent company Aldersgate Investments sold a 49 per cent stake to a Chinese data tech consortium.

Defence’s contract with Global Switch was due to expire in October last year but in a new contract tendered to federal parliament on Tuesday, it was revealed that contract was instead extended until September 2025.

The quiet re-signing came at a cost of $53.5 million, about $250,000 over the original quote.

This was despite the then treasurer and now Prime Minister Scott Morrison in 2016 ordering all the sensitive data be moved out of the Ultimo warehouse facility by the end of 2020.

Bob Katter tabled a motion with parliament to terminate all contracts with foreign owned external data storage centres today, notably the Chinese owned facility Global Switch. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

It is understood the storage warehouse has an Australian Signals Directorate-accredited gateway to allow secure access by Defence staff to stored data of protected and restricted level documents.

These could include sensitive data such as be departmental personnel files, commercial-in-confidence contracts, defence decision making notes.

Mr Morrison on Tuesday told parliament he was more comfortable with the contract now given some of the more sensitive documents were removed from Global Switch to a purpose built facility and that “Defence is now progressing work consistent with this strategy to migrate less sensitive and unclassified data assets to an alternative data centre.”

But leading security expert Peter Jennings from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has questioned whether this was good enough and said there were concerns as far back as 2016 the data could be remotely accessed by a “hostile actor”.

“Some mitigation is possible, tapping into government information being the owner of a data system is a great way to start you on that journey,” Mr Jennings told News Corp Australia.

“Frankly we know they are interested in this stuff because they work on systems they don’t own to aggressively try and get information,” Mr Jennings said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Defence was working to migrate less sensitive and unclassified data to an alternative data centre. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

A notice of motion tabled with parliament by Queensland MP Bob Katter and former Army officer and independent federal MP Andrew Wilkie has called on the government to immediately terminate all data storage contracts held with foreign-owned entities.

“What is the point of having a defence system when a military 100 times larger than ours knows where all your defence assets are?” Mr Katter said.

It is understood Defence is not the only agency to store its sensitive documents and online gateway access to files with Global Switch, with the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission also having their files there, although both are in advanced processes of moving them out.

Global Switch has previously said its files and customers were held at the highest security levels with shareholders restricted from physical access to its centres.

Aldersgate Investments accepted $4 billion in cash to sell its stake to Chinese consortium Elegant Jubilee, brought together by a China-owned data storage network, in a move which caused concerns at the time in the British parliament.

Last night a Defence Department spokesman confirmed Defence would retain full operational control of its data halls within the Ultimo data centre until full migration of the data by 2025.

Originally published as Defence signs over storage of classified data to China-owned firm