Posing a new challenge to the Abbott government, reports published in The Guardian Australia on Monday revealed that Australian intelligence agency, then known as the Defence Signals Directorate and now called the Australian Signals Directorate, offered a broader sweep of material to its partners - the U.S., UK, Canada and New Zealand. The latest revelation will pose another headache for Tony Abbott, who has been reeling under pressure from Indonesia after it was revealed that Australian intelligence agency spied on the country's president, his wife, and other senior government functionaries.

Reacting to the latest report in the Guardian, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said: "I'm confident that we've got all the relevant safeguards in place and I have no reason to think that any Australian intelligence organisation has not acted in accordance with Australian law."

The latest revelation is based on 2008 documents leaked by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden to the Guardian, which indicated that Australia offered its global spying partners detailed personal information about Australian citizens at the "5-eyes" conference hosted by UK's GCHQ in Cheltenham on April 22-23, 2008.

"The document shows the partners at the conference discussing whether or not to share "medical, legal or religious information".

What is ironic in The Guardian Australia report is the contrast in Australian position compared to that of Canada. The Australian agency told the conference that it could share bulk data about Australian citizenry without privacy restraints imposed by other countries like Canada.

"DSD can share bulk, unselected, unminimised metadata as long as there is no intent to target an Australian national," notes from an intelligence conference quoted by The Guardian Australia say.

"Unintentional collection is not viewed as a significant issue," as quoted in the report.

The Australian position at the conference was clearly different from the Canadians who "insisted that bulk collection could only be shared if information about its citizens was first "minimised", meaning deleted or removed," says the Guardian Australia report.

The partners agreed that medical, legal or religious information would not be automatically excluded from the sharing arrangement. Nevertheless, sharing of such information would be considered by the owner agency "on a case-by-case basis".