Council chiefs have apologised after the National Insurance numbers of thousands of pension holders were disclosed.
The NI numbers were printed in the address fields of 6,600 pension newsletters from Northumberland County Council and were clearly visible through the cellophane of the envelopes.
Staff at the third-party mailing company used to send out the newsletters also had access to the numbers.
A letter was sent to all its pension holders by the council’s Information Security and Data Protection Officer Chris Heane, on April 7 to inform them of the security breach.
Read more in the Morpeth Herald.