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Housing association suffers data breach over coronavirus email
Watford Community Housing (WCH) accidentally sent out an email containing contact and personal details, including their ethnicity and sexual orientation, about a “significant portion” of its customers.
The email, which was sent on Monday, was aimed at providing guidance on how to communicate with and receive information from the housing association during the coronavirus outbreak.
However, it contained personal information about a “significant proportion” of WCH’s residents, including their contact details, date of birth, ethnicity and sexual orientation.
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The housing association said the email contained no financial information about the customers.
In an email to customers, WCH said it responded quickly to the incident “communicating on social media and emailing those affected, advising them to delete the information immediately as well as apologising”.
WCH said it was investigating the incident fully, liaising with the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Regulator of Social Housing as necessary and working directly with those affected to “keep any adverse impact to a minimum”.
The association said it will be closely monitoring the situation and will keep customers up to date with developments and the next steps.
This is the latest high-profile data issue in the housing association sector in recent years.
In October last year, 55,000-home landlord Home Group was forced to contact 4,000 of its residents after it discovered a “possible data vulnerability” in its IT systems. And in March last year, it emerged that Bromford had mistakenly leaked the personal information of 253 residents after a data breach led to letters being mistakenly sent to their old addresses.
