Honours list reveals stars’ home addresses
Famous names were caught up in a security gaffe after the addresses of more than 1,000 New Year’s Honours’ recipients were revealed on a government website.
Stars such as Sir Elton John, Olivia Newton-john and Ben Stokes were among those whose details were available early yesterday.
The list also included the details of former director of public prosecution for England and Wales, Alison Saunders, as well as officials who work in the police and prison services.
The list is thought to have been available from about 10pm on Friday until the early hours of yesterday.
The Cabinet Office, which is responsible for administering the honours list, said it had reported the breach to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Technology firm chief Mark Littlewood said: “I was astonished to see people’s full addresses.
“When I checked back a few hours later it was showing an error message.
“Before it was removed, the document available for download contained home addresses for people in sensitive roles such as prison governors and directors of pharmaceutical companies. “There were also a number of famous people such as Elton John. They were available for a few hours at least. I did not want to be responsible for sharing this data further so I made a point of not saving it to a cloud, putting it online or emailing it.”
A Cabinet Office spokesman said yesterday: “We apologise to all those affected and are looking into how this happened. We have reported the matter to the ICO and are contacting all those affected directly.”