An Post contacted Data Protection Commissioner over Cork data breach

An Post says it has contacted the Data Protection Commissioner following a breach involving 250 of its customers in Cork.

The Douglas Post Office, located in the Douglas Village shopping centre, has been closed since the fire on August 31 and was a collection point for those who use An Post’s AddressPal service, which allows customers to order items online that require a US or UK delivery address.

However an email informing AddressPal customers that the service for Douglas has now been transferred to Blackrock Post Office breached data protection law, and an Post emailed all affected within hours to apologise.

“Unfortunately, your email address, together with 249 other email addresses, was mistakenly included in the “to” field rather than the “bcc” field in the email.

This means that your email address was disclosed to 249 other recipients and their email address was disclosed to you.

“An Post apologises unreservedly for this error. This is a data breach and is being reported to the Data Protection Commission. Action has been taken to prevent reoccurrence,” it said.

The correspondence also asks the recipient to delete the original email and any copies of it.