Personal details of 15,000 council staff put online

A LOCAL authority has admitted a data breach which saw the personal details of around 15,000 council employees published online in error.

South Lanarkshire Council confirmed that a spreadsheet containing information about job titles, salaries and national insurance numbers was included in a freedom of information request about staff pay grades.

The council said it was ‘human error’ that the spreadsheet contained data that had not been anonymised. It said it spotted the mistake and arranged for the data to be removed.

However, it remained available for around a month on the popular freedom of information website What Do They Know.

The breach also affects ex-employees as it included the data of those who worked for the council prior to 2021.

The GMB union has now said it will back any members taking legal action if they suffered financial loss as a result of the breach.

One ex-employee said: ‘A lot of people aren’t happy about it. They said they have asked the person to wipe it, but it’s five or six weeks too late. There are a lot of people going to take legal advice and I’m one of them.

‘The information is enough for any fraudster to use anything. Once they have your national insurance number, that’s all they need.’

The former council worker has called for those affected to be compensated.

A spokesman for South Lanarkshire Council said: ‘To the best of our knowledge the information was not accessed and we believe the data could not be used in a way that would be harmful to those involved.’