Fiona Parker reports:
A massive blunder has seen the sensitive personal details of 15,000 Hackney residents – including address, sexuality and rent accounts – leaked online.
Bungling council officers have also revealed the age and housing benefit entitlement of Hackney Homes tenants and leaseholders in the botched Freedom of Information request, which was inadvertently published in full on the website What Do They Know (WDTK).
The private information was publicly available online for 11 days before the error was noticed on November 25 – but affected residents were only informed of the huge data breach in a letter sent out this week.
Hackney Council insists that only 11 people viewed the document, and that the data would have only been accessible to people with “detailed” IT knowledge.
But the data remains in the hands of the person who requested the FOI, and residents affected said they have been left vulnerable and in fear of identity theft.
Read more on Hackney Gazette.