Hundreds of email addresses exposed after council garden waste gaffe

Hundreds of Islanders had their email addresses exposed after a blunder from Isle of Wight Council's green garden waste service team.

The 'error', made on Tuesday, January 6, has prompted the council to refer itself to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

An email concerning green garden waste subscription renewal, seen by the County Press, and containing 444 other email addresses, was sent to one recipient through carbon copy (cc).

It meant that all involved in the email chain could see the addresses.

In emails seen by the County Press, a council staff member apologised, attempted to recall the error and urged recipients to delete unrecalled emails.

The gaffe has been reported to the council's Data Protection team, and the IW Council has self-referred itself to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

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"As soon as the error was identified, the council attempted to recall the email and has asked recipients to delete any unrecalled messages.

"We have also issued an apology to those affected and reported the matter immediately to our Data Protection team for appropriate action."

A spokesperson added that while it does not on staffing matters, an "investigation into the matter is taking place along with ensuring that lessons are learnt" and no other personal information was included within the email.