In a statement this morning, SA Police said those caught up in the Optus hack do not need to make a police report to apply for a replacement licence as is ordinarily the case when fraudulent activity occurs.

They said affected customers need to instead provide documentation from Optus.

“Normally, to apply for a new licence DIT (Department for Infrastructure and Transport) require supporting statements from South Australia Police or another law enforcement agency confirming fraudulent activity has occurred or has the potential to be fraudulently used, as stated on the DIT application form MR666 ‘Application for change of licence/client number’,” the police statement said.

“This is not the case for anyone affected by the Optus data breach, as members of the public can attend Service SA with documentation from Optus and do not need to make a police report.”

Service SA centres across Adelaide will stay open for longer this week to help the government process the surge in licence replacement requests.

The Seaford Meadows, Gawler, Adelaide and Prospect Service SA centres will open at 8am tomorrow and on Thursday to allow for extra hour of processing.

Meanwhile, the Elizabeth, Marion and Tranmere branches will stay open until 7pm on Thursday for an extra two hours of processing.

The government is also waiving the usual $20 processing fee for driver’s licence replacements and will be seeking reimbursement from Optus.

Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis said the government would normally process as few as 200 driver’s licence replacement requests each year, but between Tuesday and midday Friday last week, Service SA dealt with “well over” 16,000 requests – including more than 2000 on Friday morning alone.

“That means Service SA staff have processed nearly a century’s worth of licence replacements in just over three days,” he said on Friday.

“Optus have long told Australians that they’re a company that says ‘yes’, and we expect them to do the same as we seek reimbursement for SA taxpayers.”

Federal Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten this morning confirmed that Optus had provided Services Australia with data almost a fortnight after the massive data breach was revealed.

He said the government agency was currently assessing the data to see what could be drawn from it.

“We shouldn’t have to play hide and seek and wait to day 13 to get material,” he told reporters in Canberra.

“What it’s about is the horses bolted. We’re trying to close the gate.

“All I’m motivated by is … to get the information so I can stop hackers from hacking into government data and further compromising people’s privacy.”

Shorten said Optus had revised its estimates to 50,000 compromised Medicare records and 150,000 passports.

He called for the telco to be more forthcoming with information.

Optus’s parent company advised it had engaged lawyers in case it was subject to any class action over the hack, which involved the personal details of more than 10 million customers being compromised.

In a statement to the Singapore stock exchange on Monday, Optus owner Singtel said it had not received any legal notice of a class action but any such move would be “vigorously defended”.

The company also said it wanted to clarify media reports about potential fines or other costs relating to the incident.

“Singtel considers these reports speculative at this juncture and advises that they should not be relied upon,” it said.

Optus on Monday revealed more than two million customers had their identification documents exposed in the data breach.

The telecommunications giant has launched an independent review conducted by consultancy firm Deloitte of the circumstances surrounding the data hack.

– with AAP