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Hackney Council IT data blunder 'could have cost lives'

LDRS Lydia AfrakomahLDRS
Lydia Afrakomah was living in a hostel with her daughter when her address was shared online

Details of vulnerable women who were living in hostels were shared online after Hackney Council accidentally made them available to the public.

An investigation by the Local Democracy Reporting Service found that senior managers had chosen the wrong privacy settings on the website Trello.

A domestic violence campaigner said vulnerable women "could have been killed" because of the error.

The council said a "relatively small" number of cases had been shared.

The internal breach follows a cyber attack in October.

Information on 51 Trello boards, a website used as a free project management site, had been shared publicly, the LDRS found.

An un-redacted spreadsheet that contained the names and addresses of women in temporary accommodation for their own safety was first made public by the council just one month after the cyber attack.

Other documents mistakenly posted online included:

  • A screenshot showing a vulnerable tenant's address and national insurance number
  • Case notes from a welfare check on a "frail" resident
  • Minutes from a high-level housing meeting that revealed the council was losing £500,000 a month because the cyber attack had knocked out its arrears collection service

Lydia Afrakomah, 32, who was placed in temporary hostel accommodation after she and her six-year-old daughter were made homeless in 2019, had her address put online in February.

She said: "I trusted the council to protect me. When I was made homeless I was at their mercy. I thought they would keep me and my daughter safe - but this feels like a betrayal.

"It's terrifying to find out that our address was on the internet for so long. I'm so angry that I don't know what words to use, and I'm scared to even think what could have happened to us."

She added that the breach was "reckless" and had risked the lives of vulnerable women who were escaping abusive partners.

LDRS Screenshot of data breach redactedLDRS
Information about vulnerable residents was shared publicly by Hackney Council

The building where Ms Afrakomah stayed is believed to house up to 100 vulnerable residents - including dozens of at-risk women and children.

Domestic violence campaigner Ngozi Fulani said: "Vulnerable women could have been killed because of this. They might still be killed because of it."

The public information was eventually removed after the council asked the LDRS for information on how to access the Trello boards.

Hackney Mayor Philip Glanville said: "I want to apologise on behalf of Hackney Council to residents affected by this data breach, in which a relatively small number of cases of personal information were shared publicly in error.

"We corrected any public access issues as soon as we were made aware of them, and have carried out an exhaustive audit of all our Trello boards to ensure there are no more corrections that need to be made."

Hackney Council said it would report itself to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), but the ICO said it had not yet received a report of the breach.