The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined the Cabinet Office £500,000 for disclosing postal addresses of the 2020 New Year Honours recipients online.
The ICO found that the Cabinet Office failed to put appropriate technical and organisational measures in place to prevent the unauthorised disclosure of people’s information. This is a breach of data protection law.
On 27 December 2019 the Cabinet Office published a file on GOV.UK containing the names and unredacted addresses of more than 1,000 people announced in the New Year Honours list. People from a wide range of professions across the UK were affected, including individuals with a high public profile.
Read more at the Information Commissioner’s Office