The private phone numbers of several high-profile figures, including Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump Jr., have been published on a US-based website.
The site, which uses AI to scrape publicly available information from the internet, currently lists their personal contact details. BBC has opted not to name the website.
Albanese’s office is aware of the situation, first reported by independent Australian outlet Ette Media, and local authorities are investigating. A spokesman for Australia’s opposition leader Sussan Ley, whose private number was also exposed, described the incident as “obviously concerning” and confirmed that a request has been made to remove the information.
The website claims to hold contact information for hundreds of millions of professionals and is primarily used by recruiters and sales representatives. BBC verification confirmed the listing of Albanese’s current private number and a personal contact for Donald Trump Jr., though it is unclear if the latter still uses the number.
The method by which the site obtained these numbers remains uncertain, but Australia has faced several major data breaches in recent years. Users can search a limited number of contacts for free or subscribe to the paid service for full access.
According to the website, it collects public information such as filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and also leverages AI to gather data from social media, other web crawlers, and job portals.
