Plymouth Council Exposes 500 Home-Schooling Families' Emails in BCC Error
Plymouth City Council accidentally revealed the email addresses of around 500 home-schooling families by failing to use the BCC field in a mass email. The error, attributed to human mistake, has led to confusion and prompted the council to apologize and ask recipients to delete the message. This incident follows similar data exposure issues in other UK local authorities.
Key points
- Plymouth City Council's Elective Home Education team sent an email to approximately 500 home-schooling families.
- Recipient email addresses were visible to all recipients due to the use of the 'To' or 'CC' field instead of BCC.
- The council cited human error as the cause and apologized, urging recipients to delete the email.
- This incident mirrors a recent similar data exposure involving hundreds of disabled residents in City of York Council.
- The error did not include sensitive personal information beyond email addresses, according to the council.
Plymouth City Council has confirmed a data breach impacting approximately 500 families who are educating their children at home. The incident occurred when the council's Elective Home Education team sent out an email regarding upcoming legislative changes. Due to human error, the "BCC" (Blind Carbon Copy) field was not utilized, making the email addresses of all recipients visible to each other.
The council stated that the message contained no sensitive personal data beyond the email addresses themselves. Upon realizing the mistake, Plymouth City Council contacted the affected families, apologized for the error, and requested that they delete the email and disregard any information it contained. This mishap follows a similar data exposure incident involving hundreds of disabled residents in the City of York Council just the week prior, highlighting ongoing challenges with email privacy practices in public sector bodies.
The affected families reported confusion and a "mess" following the initial communication, with subsequent follow-up messages reportedly adding to the disarray. The council has not responded to further inquiries but acknowledged the blunder as an oversight.
Sources
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