Hundreds of residents' details shared in data breach

South Gloucestershire Council's chiefs said all measures to avoid any similar breach in future will be taken

A council chief has apologised after hundreds of residents' sensitive data was mistakenly shared online.

Some names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of 625 people who responded to South Gloucestershire Council's consultation on 24 October were published online for three days.

Once the error was spotted, council officers took "very prompt action" to remove the data and report the breach to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Patrick Conroy, strategic planning policy and specialist advice manager at the council, offered his "unreserved apologies".

Council leaders said documents containing personal data should have been deleted from a worksheet before it was published, but this did not happen.

"The details covered 625 respondents to the Local Plan consultation, either members of the public or representative groups who had given personal contact details," a council spokesperson added.

When the council was made aware of the error, Mr Conroy said "immediate steps" were taken to remove the data from the consultation website.

"As I hope that you can see from the very prompt action of its officers the council takes matters of data protection extremely seriously," he added.

An initial assessment of the incident had been carried out with the council's data protection officer and in line with its personal data breach procedures which indicated there was a "low risk" to those affected by the breach.

A council spokesperson said: "The council's data protection incident policy and protocols are being followed, including referring the matter to the ICO.

"All measures to avoid any similar breach in future will be taken, in addition to following any guidance received from the ICO in due course," they added.