Leeds trans charity 'sorry' for data breach

17 June 2019, 12:05 | Updated: 17 June 2019, 12:09

Leeds based charity Mermaids UK, which supports transgender children and young people, has apologised after confidential emails were published online.

An investigation by the Sunday Times found more than a thousand pages of Mermaids emails were available on the internet. The paper says they included messages from parents who were worried about their children and also contained names, addresses and telephone numbers.

An official statement from Mermaids says 'The scope of the breach was that internal Mermaids emails from 2016 and 2017 in a private user group were available on the internet, if certain precise search-terms were used.'

The charity also apologised for the breach ' Even though we have acted promptly and thoroughly, we are sorry.'

Mermaids UK insist they took immediate action to remedy the breach once they were made aware of it and also that they notified the Information Commissioners Office.

The charity says it 'now has the internal processes and access to technical support which should mean such breaches cannot now occur.'