Boosting Female Founders FOI documents doxxed an applicant and government worker

Today we published our latest reporting into the Boosting Female Founders (BFF) program. This was based on FOI documents secured by this publication, which reveal further information on the mishandling of the program over the past 21 months. It also revealed the identity of one of the respondents — an applicant of BFF — who had asked to be redacted from the documents, as well as a departmental worker.

The Freedom of Information Act 1982 gives any person the right to access copies of documents from the government, except for those that have been exempt.

In the case of Boosting Female Founders, SmartCompany requested access to certain emails between the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR) between 2022 and 2023.

As this request would capture emails sent from some applicants to the department, those people were notified and given the option to have their personal information included or redacted.

Many opted to have their details redacted, which is understandable given they own private companies and were applying for a grant that could help make or break their businesses.

FOI doxxes an applicant, and themselves

Unfortunately for one redacted applicant, not all of their information was removed. A rogue website address was missed at the bottom of an email included in the documents.

They weren’t one of the businesses ultimately awarded a BFF grant, but they emailed the grant coordinators wanting an update on timings. The delay in the program was stopping the business from executing a project that involved training for one of the founders.

This was a problem because they, like so many other BFF applicants, were at a loss for what to do. If they started the project before getting the grant they would not be able to claim the expenditure. But there were no guarantees they would get the grant.

Applicants were also, at that stage, not allowed to alter proposed project details submitted in their grant application.

Email from the exposed applicant from January 2023. Source: FOI documents

SmartCompany won’t reveal details of this applicant as they still wish to remain anonymous. But they did refer to identifying information being left in FOI documents as an “egregious oversight”.

They also had a story similar to many other applicants — that the extensive delays in Round 3 of BFF, combined with a lack of proactive communication from DISR endangered their businesses. This was sadly even the case for some of the founders who successfully obtained a grant in Round 3 and were allegedly told to start spending before contracts had even been signed.

“Our business was quite literally close to closing up and winding down completely,” the source said on a call with SmartCompany.

“We had halted everything waiting on this grant, or at least waiting to find out if we were even going to get this grant. The next thing we got was not for a couple of months and it was just ‘your application didn’t meet the criteria’.

“So sorry, you get nothing.”

The applicant wasn’t the only person to be inadvertently identified in the FOI documents. An email between another BFF applicant and the department, where the information for the worker was largely redacted, included an inclusion of their name in the body of the email.

The FOI documents have since been updated to remove the identifying information of both the applicant and the departmental worker.

“The department processes all its FOI requests in accordance with the FOI Act, FOI Guidelines issued by the Australian Information Commissioner and comprehensive procedures,” a DISR spokesperson said in an email to SmartCompany.

“In this case a human error has occurred. We sincerely apologise and are reviewing how this happened.”

Nothing new for Boosting Female Founders

Technical issues and the mishandling of information are unfortunately nothing new when it comes to the BFF program.

During Round 2 of the program — when it was still run by the Morrison government — applicants were sent an email congratulating them on making it through to the next stage. A follow-up email sent several hours later admitted this was an error and they weren’t successful.

Fast forward to November 2023 and hundreds of applicants from various BFF rounds received an email from the department, asking them to complete a 15-20 minute feedback survey. 

Recipients included a mixture of current applicants as well as those who had been successful and unsuccessful in previous rounds of the program.

Several of the applicants that SmartCompany spoke to found the survey to be in poor taste considering the ongoing delays to Round 3 of the program. But the real problem lay in the fact the survey was sent with all recipients cc’d in, exposing their email addresses.

“To add insult to injury, [the email] was sent and recalled no fewer than FIVE times,” a source said to SmartCompany at the time. Multiple sources also confirmed that the emails were sent and recalled all within a 70-minute period.