Australia Demands High Level Information Security On Submarine Project

Australia has warned DCNS ship building firm that it wants the same level of information security on the new submarine project like it shares with the US ally.

The Australian senior defense official issued warning to DCNS in the wake of leaked documents related to India’s Scorpene project. The new submarine fleet’s 22,400 secret documents have been leaked Wednesday.

Australian Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne ordered that the warning be issued, showing that the Turnbull government is concerned by the aftermath of the DCNS leak on Australia’s US $38.2 billion submarines project, The Australian reported.

The DCNS is expected to announce that it will set up a new security committee in Australia to help safeguard against leaks of classified data for the project.

The new security committee would govern the measures with which DCNS develops to deliver the Australian government’s strict security requirements for the Future Submarine Program, DCNS Australia head Sean Costello said.

The leaks scandal has turned into a raging controversy in India as well as France as both the governments seek to grapple with the damage it has done to India’s national security and to DCNS company’s global reputation.

The 22,400 pages of leaked secret documents, marked “Restricted Scorpene India” reveal the “highly sensitive combat and stealth capabilities of India’s Scorpene subs”, including the frequencies at which they gather intelligence, their range, endurance, diving depths, the noise they radiate at different speeds as well as their magnetic and infra-red signatures.

The secret data is likely to have been removed from DCNS by a former sub-contractor in 2011 and taken to a private company in Southeast Asia before being passed to a branch of that company in a second Southeast Asian nation.

The data filed in a disk was then posted in regular mail to a company in Australia.

DCNS is focusing its investigation on former employees and sub-contractors involved in the project. At this stage it is not believed that the leak came from India.