Cr Tom O’Brien commented about the incident during a discussion on artificial intelligence at the council’s finance and assurance committee earlier this week.
He told the meeting he received an email from the mayor which he thought was a bit suspicious.
"I wasn’t too sure, so I picked up the telephone and rang him — asking ‘is it you?"’
Speaking to the Otago Daily Times yesterday, Mr Scott confirmed the incident but said it was not the first time something like this had happened.
Since he had been elected, he was aware people had received an email using his name in a similar fashion on four separate occasions.
The email address of the bogus emails differed from his official one.
"The last one sent said something like ‘Can you just let me know if you got five minutes?’ Or ‘I need a favour. Have you got five minutes free?’ or something."
"When they replied to that, a further email asked ‘Can you go and buy me some iTunes cards?’ or something like ‘I’m stuck in a pickle’ — but it was quite good that Tom raised the issue to me rather than reply to the email."
He received a similar email when he was a councillor, which allegedly was from former mayor Gary Tong.
Even though the language was different from what he often used, he believed it was easy for some people to fall for the ruse and reply to it, Mr Scott said.
"It is frustrating, and I guess it’s the ability of people to abuse the technology."
The mayor believed incidents like these scams, and the evolution of artificial technology was something the council should look at.
"It’s almost like some of the movies that we watch.
"I think it’s something that we need to be aware of.
"There’s going to be advantages to it [artificial intelligence], but quite clearly some strong risks as well."
He said having knowledge was power, so the council would be preparing a report and bringing the matter to the table in an effort to foresee any future risks.
