The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has admitted to accidentally revealing the confidential details of 1,600 complainants last year.
The data leaked on the regulator’s website included names, addresses as well as phone numbers of consumers.
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The FCA said that it accidentally made the personal details public as the result of an error handling a response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
“The response related to the number and nature of new complaints made against the FCA and handled by the Complaints Team between 2 January 2018 and 17 July 2019,” the regulator said.
FCA has removed the data from its website and conducted a review to gauge the breach’s extent.
It stressed that financial, payment card, passport or other identity-related data were not revealed.
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By GlobalDataIn response, FCA has referred the issue to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
In most of the cases, only the complainant’s name was compromised.
The watchdog stated: “However, there are instances where additional confidential information was contained within the description of the complaint, for example an address, telephone number, or other information.
“Where this is the case, we are making direct contact with the individuals concerned to apologise and to advise them of the extent of the data disclosed and what the next steps might be.”
