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.

The national work placement programme was established by the Government in May last year so that unemployed people with qualifications could gain experience in their area of expertise.

The email with the 2,000 addresses was sent out last Friday, November 19, and an apology was circulated earlier this week on Tuesday, November 23.

In the apology, the agency said they had “mistakenly used the To: instead of the Bcc: for the list of recipients”.

“Please accept our sincere apologies for this error; we can assure you that this is the first time that such an error has been made and that it will not happen again. The office of the Data Protection Commission has been made aware of the situation and Fás will continue to communicate with them on this matter,” he said.

Fás asked the participants to delete the original message from their mailbox. Last night a Fás spokesman said they “immediately sought advice from the Data Protection Commissioner’s Office once the mistake had been identified and acted in accordance with the advice given”.

However, one of the recipients, Ciarán Delaney from Rathcormac, Co Cork, said he has “received an increase in international spam since the email was distributed”.

“It’s less than a week later and it’s clear that the email has got into the wrong hands. As I expected, there’s a big increase in spam. This shouldn’t have happened”.