Council apologises after parent email data breach

A council has apologised after revealing personal details of parents in an email about school bus passes.

The email, seen by the BBC, was sent to parents by Nottinghamshire County Council on Friday.

It contained the full names and reference numbers of dozens of students, as well as the names and email addresses of other parents and carers.

A council spokesman confirmed there had been a data breach following a mail merge project to send reminders about school bus pass payments.

The spokesman added that, after an internal investigation, it was decided that the threshold for notification to the Information Commissioner's Office had been met and the breach would be reported accordingly.

The email also included details of the individual costs for renewing school transport passes.

A further email sent later on Friday acknowledged the error, apologised, and said an investigation had been started "to understand how this happened and what action is needed to prevent it from happening again".

It asked recipients to permanently delete the first email and not share any of the information it contained.

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