The lead technology contractor for the 2016 Census has clarified its role during the two-day outage.
IBM was thrust into the spotlight when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull began laying blame earlier Thursday morning, while efforts were underway to resume operations.
Following the resumption of the Census online collection on Thursday afternoon, IBM issued a statement, its first since the outage began:
We genuinely regret the inconvenience that has occurred.
We want to thank the ABS, the Australian Signal Directorate and Alastair MacGibbon for their continued support.
IBM’s priority over the last two days was to work with the ABS to restore the Census site.
We are committed to our role in the delivery of this project.
Continuing to maintain the privacy and security of personal information is paramount.
The Australian Signals Directorate has confirmed no data was compromised.
Our cyber-security experts are partnering with national intelligence agencies to ensure the ongoing integrity of the site.
