The investigation marks the second such undertaking by the firm pertaining to data breaches in recent weeks, with Maurice Blackburn also in the process of considering a class action against Optus following its own data breach.

In this instance, the firm said in a statement, the Medibank data breach has involved “highly personal information”, including customers’ names, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, some Medicare and passport numbers and in some cases, sensitive health care information, including codes associated with diagnosis and medical procedures.

A ransomware group began posting some of the stolen data last Wednesday, 9 November.

Speaking about the investigation, Maurice Blackburn principal lawyer Andrew Watson said that the national plaintiff firm was carefully reviewing the latest breach and investigating whether customers are entitled to compensation.

“Companies that hold their customer’s sensitive health information have an important obligation to make sure that information is safeguarded, commensurate with the sensitivity of that data,” he said.

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“As custodians of customer’s personal health information, Medibank has a heightened responsibility to put in place greater safeguards to secure the personal and health claim information it collected from its customers, including appropriate security and monitoring systems to protect against unauthorised access or disclosure of that data.

“Medibank, ahm and international student customers will understandably feel very vulnerable and distressed as a result of this incident.”