The personal mobile phone numbers of federal politicians were available on the internet for three months before being taken down, a Senate committee has heard.
The Department of Parliamentary Services regularly releases six-monthly reports on MPs' mobile phone and internet spending details but usually deletes names and phone numbers.
However the latest report for January to June 2016 included the mobile phone numbers of most MPs and senators, including many ministers.
The only excluded numbers were those of the prime minister, treasurer, attorney-general and a few other senior figures.
Former prime ministers Julia Gillard, John Howard and Paul Keating also had their numbers released.
Instead of deleting the numbers from the documents, the font for the numbers was coloured white, meaning they could still be accessed using copy and paste.
Department of Parliamentary Services chief information officer Ian McKenzie revealed to an estimates committee on Monday the report had been on the internet since December 22 last year and was only taken down in March when a journalist contacted the department.
Mr McKenzie said 985 files had been downloaded from the Parliament House website but an unknown number of downloads would have occurred from Google's cache.
The contractor, which receives $2500 a month to undertake the job, had since changed its procedures.
"We believe sufficient controls are in place to ensure the incident not re-occur," Mr McKenzie said.
MPs and senators had been briefed on the breach and some had changed their numbers.
