Details have emerged of another filing cabinet containing confidential government documents was sold at a disposal store in Canberra in 2013.

The Sunday Canberra Times reports that a local resident bought the two-drawer filing cabinet from an ex-government furniture store in May 2013 and the bottom drawer was filled with the employee details of staff at the now Department of Social Services.

The purchaser made several attempts to contact the Department about the files, but did not receive a response until they wrote to the minister in charge about the issue.

“The documents were personnel files which had all the person details [of employees] like home addresses and phone numbers, as well as previous positions held, CVs and security clearances,” the buyer told The Canberra Times.

After contacting the minister, department officials got in touch by phone and then came and collected the documents the same day. By then it was May. The mistake was discovered in February.

A department spokesman told The Canberra Times it had reviewed improved its disposal processes since the breach to avoid repeats.

The incident follows The ABC obtaining thousands confidential cabinet documents, spanning five governments over nearly a decade, after they were found in filing cabinets on sale in a second-hand store in Canberra.

Last month The Canberra Times also obtained a classified notebook belonging to a top Defence official after it was found inside second-hand furniture sold at a Canberra tip.

You can read more on the latest bungle here.

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