Queensland e-card security breach investigated

Queensland's transport minister has ordered a full investigation into a serious security breach involving the state's e-card transport ticketing system.

Minister Rachel Nolan ordered the investigation after it was revealed that a commuter's Go Card credit was wrongly transferred to another person with the same name.

The commuter affected was a cameraman from Channel Nine, Nick Smith.

Nolan said that "initial investigations" by the Go Card's operator TransLink had revealed that an operator in the company's Milton call centre "failed to follow long-established security protocols" when transferring the credit between accounts.

The Australian newspaper reported a supervisor and junior staffer had been stood down pending the outcome of the investigation.

"The integrity of the balance transfer system is critical and a breach of security protocols like this is absolutely unacceptable," Nolan said in a statement.

"I have directed that the breach be fully investigated by both the call centre operator and by TransLink."

She said Smith had been provided "with a new fully-credited Go Card".

But shadow transport minister Fiona Simpson lambasted Nolan for making "scapegoats" of "junior" call centre staff.

"The first person to go for the Go Card fiasco should be the Minister, not junior staff," Simpson said.

"The Go Card databank contains extremely sensitive details about people's bank accounts and personal information.

"Unauthorised transaction such as occurred on (Channel 9 cameraman) Mr Nick Smith's account should never happen if the system had appropriate security measures in place."

The Opposition has had a field day with the troubled Go Card system after it accused the State Government of forcing commuters to pay higher public transport fares due to lack of availability of the go e-cards.

The Queensland Government upped fares by 20 percent for Go Card users and 40 percent for paper ticket holders in the new year, the Opposition reported.

But the cards were hard to get with just 34 of 144 train stations on the rail network having a facility to sell them to commuters, according to the Opposition.

It has sought a suspension on the "unfair penalty fee on paper public transport tickets" until access issues for the cards were resolved.