Email sent by Fás to 2,000 people revealed confidential email addresses

FÁS staff accidentally sent out an email containing 2,000 confidential email addresses to all the participants on its work placement programme.

The state training agency, which has been at the centre of widespread criticism over how it is managed, has referred the matter to the Data Protection Commissioner.

The group email, which asked individual work placement participants to complete an online survey on their experience of the scheme, should have hidden the email addresses of the other approximate 2,000 people on the course. Instead, everyone else’s email address were fully visible to anyone who had completed the course in the past year.