THE Irish Central Statistics Office have admitted one of their employees made an error which led to a breach of data protection.
A staff member of the Central Statistics Office accidentally sent information concerning thousands of former CSO employees to individuals of the public.
The CSO office has apologised as the news broke when a former enumerator of the CSO realised the company had sent her P45 to someone else. Upon more inspection, the woman discovered up to 1,000 other former employees had been affected and any information that was leaked had been deleted.
A spokesperson for the CSO volunteered the information that it wasn't 1,000 people who had their personal information leaked but rather, a greater number of people affected at 3,000 former employees.
According to Independent.ie, the office said: "The Central Statistics Office confirms that between November 10 and 14, 2017, as a result of an administrative error, personal P45 information relating to 3,000 former employees was disclosed via email to 4 individuals, in breach of the Data Protection Acts.
"Three of recipients were themselves former employees who had sought access to their P45 records; the fourth was the accountant of one of these former staff members.The error was discovered on the 14th November and each recipient was immediately contacted and requested to provide confirmation that the emails and their contents had been deleted. These confirmations have been received.
"The CSO immediately notified the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) of the breach and the individuals affected have been informed by letter."
The spokesperson offered an apology on the behalf of the CSO to all those affected: "Confidentiality and protecting individual privacy are core values of the CSO.
"This incident falls well short of the high standards of confidentiality and data governance demanded by the Office and is taken extremely seriously. A sincere apology is extended to those affected by this employee data breach.
"A thorough investigation of the incident is underway and additional control measures have been urgently implemented to safeguard employee data and to reinforce data governance... The DPC is continuing to liaise with the CSO in relation to this breach."
