UK Govt Accidentally Shares Home Addresses of Over 1,000 New Year Honours Recipients

The government accidentally published the home addresses of more than 1,000 New Year Honours recipients, including celebrities like Elton John and Ben Stokes.

The list was briefly posted to a government website, allowing anyone who visited the page to download it as a spreadsheet, which contained postcodes and house numbers of nearly every person recognised in the list. It included celebrities such as TV chef Nadiya Hussain and cricketer Ben Stokes, senior politicians including Iain Duncan Smith, as well as senior police officers.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) confirmed that it received the information from the government and is “making enquiries” in response to the reports of a data breach.

Silkie Carlo, director of privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, told the Independent that “it’s extremely worrying to see that the government doesn’t have a basic grip on data protection and that people receiving some of the highest honours have been put at risk because of this.”

In July the ICO announced its intention to fine British Airways £183m for a data breach, which will become the largest penalty ever issued by the regulator once the process is completed. The department later handed out an intention to fine the hotel chain Marriott International £99m after it admitted the guest records of around 339 million people had been accessed.

Sourse: sputniknews.com