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A STATUTORY HEALTH body has apologised for a data breach in which the email addresses of unsuccessful applicants to a job were mistakenly shared.
In an email informing individuals that their application had been unsuccessful, the email addresses of about 200 other applicants were shared.
The email, seen by TheJournal.ie, was sent by the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC) on Tuesday. PHECC is an independent statutory body which sets the standards for education and training for pre-hospital emergency care in Ireland.
All emergency medical technicians, paramedics and advanced paramedics must be registered with PHECC in order to legally practice in Ireland.
The affected individuals had applied for a clerical role in PHECC’s office in Naas, Co Kildare.
One of the applicants told TheJournal.ie: “What scares me about this leak of data is that although I was unsuccessful, if word had spread to my current employer it wouldn’t have looked too favorably on me and it may have affected my standing in my current role.
“Due to their lack of care and attention it has landed me in a stressful situation worrying that my current employer will find out and affect my current job or income.
“It’s lucky this was only an email address and not my physical address and patient data too.”
‘Genuine error’
Richard Lodge, Director of PHECC, confirmed that the email addresses of the unsuccessful applicants “were mistakenly pasted into the “To” section rather than the “Blind Copy” section of a bulk email and were included in an email sent to all unsuccessful applicants”.
“Regrettably, this resulted in all unsuccessful applicants having visibility of the email addresses of all other unsuccessful applicants.
The error was noted 18 minutes after sending the email and an apology was immediately sent to all the individuals concerned, requesting that, as the data was not intended for them, the email is deleted from their inbox as a containment measure.
Lodge said a Data Breach Notification was compiled and sent to the Data Protection Commissioner.
“This was a genuine error on our part and we take such incidents very seriously.
“As Director of the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council, I would like to take responsibility for this breach and apologise unreservedly for any distress or upset this may have caused to the recipients of the e-mail.”
Lodge added that the organisation is now reviewing its policies and procedures and “seeking to introduce measures that would prevent a repeat of this type of error happening again in the future”.
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Very sad that someones live can go so wrong that no one has noticed them missing for so long. And such an awful way to go. Poor guy.
They have missed them they just didn’t know this is how they ended up :(
Terrible state of affairs, poor man, obviously homeless person so nobody missed him…profoundly sad, may he RIP.
Unless it was the home owner who may not have had any concerned family members, either way a truly sad passing in such a built up area surrounded by people yet so alone :(
There was a time when community existed, people knew and looked out for each other.
Long gone NorahB,There is still some of us left though.Good to see you think same as i do :)
God bless you and your family.
Rest in peace to the poor man :( truly heartbreaking to think he lay there.Deepest condolences to his family :(
Hard to believe its been there for nearly 4 years. Not one nosey so n so had a peep in. Strange
sad, yet ridiculous, why hasn’t anyone tried to contact that person? no neighbours or anything?
It was a derelict house so maybe a homeless person. Perhaps he was on the missing persons list? We don’t know yet, but whatever the circumstance it terrible sad that someone should die like this.
Even if he/she was homeless, no one should die like this, as you said, however someone should check such houses, well everyone’s clever after such loss.
Of course Joanna, in the ideal world that would happen. Maybe even in a small town, but in a city it’s easy to become lost, too easy I suppose.
We will all know to morrow.. V sad..
Am sure he is in heaven for the last 4 years
Yeah…heaven…after what must have been a virtual Hell on earth. Good luck with that Mags.
If he was a homeless person, has no other homeless person tried that house? Can a house be vacant for four years without anybody checking who owns it?
The Family will have done peace as they have gone through Hell…
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