A charity that supports transgender children has apologised and referred itself to the information commissioner’s office following a data breach that led to the publication of parents’ personal emails online.
Mermaids, a UK charity providing support and advice to transgender or non-gender-conforming children, said it immediately took action after being made aware of the data breach on Friday afternoon.
The breach, first reported in the Sunday Times, included more than 1,000 pages of Mermaids’ internal confidential emails from 2016 and 2017 in a private user group being made available online, if certain precise search terms were used. The correspondence included “full and frank discussion” and the names, addresses and telephone numbers of parents who had contacted the charity for advice.
A spokesperson for the charity apologised for the breach and said it happened at a time when it was a “smaller but growing organisation”. It added that the information could not be found unless the person specifically searched for the emails.
The charity, based in Leeds, reported itself to the charity commission and an independent third party expert will conduct an investigation reporting to its trustees.
The spokesperson added: “Mermaids have rapidly examined all the information so as to ascertain any other measures which need to be taken. So the overall position is that there was an inadvertent breach, which has been rapidly remedied and promptly reported to the ICO.
“Finally, Mermaids apologises for the breach. Even though we have acted promptly and thoroughly, we are sorry.”
The data was published online after chief executive, Susie Green, set up a private email group to share information with the charity’s trustees. But the online platform was publicly accessible.
In February, the charity was awarded a National Lottery Community Fund grant of £500,000 over five years despite a backlash that prompted the funding body to review its decision.
The charity, formed in 1995, which hopes to use the money to set up networking hubs for children in need across the UK, was told in December the offer had been suspended pending an investigation.
The National Lottery Community Fund received more than 800 responses from the public, both in support and against the decision to award the grant and decided to review its funding decision.
The 40-page review accused the charity of prematurely pushing for life-altering medical interventions, promoting questionable statistics in relation to the suicide risk of trans children, and adopting an approach contrary to scientific evidence.
The charity denied all allegations and following the review the National Lottery said it had not found any grounds to withhold the grant.