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An NHS clinic exposed the email addresses of nearly 2,000 transgender patients in a horrendous breach of privacy.
The Charring Cross Gender Identity Clinic in London sent out a mass email about an art competition to patients and forgot to blind copy the details of other patients.
This meant everyone on the email list going through or considering gender therapy could see each others email address.
Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which runs the clinic, admitted the serious data breach affected up to 2,000 people.
It is reported the employee responsible sent out a second email which blind copied other addresses when they realised their mistake.
One of the people affected Shon Faye told the Guardian: This is a horrendous breach of privacy.
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Its very alarming because it could have an impact on peoples lives.
It could lead to people being outed to family members or to their communities as being trans, where it may be a risk to them being known to be trans.
Many Twitter users were furious after the impact of the data breach.
One person said: They literally just outed thousands of trans patients.
Another wrote: This is a grotesque violation of patient privacy.
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Sean Humber, of solicitors Leigh Day who specialises in NHS data breaches, said the clinic is now facing a hefty bill and patients affected could claim thousaRead More – Source
