Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce the effect of data breaches of sensitive immigration information on people whose details have been accidentally published online.

The Home Office takes data breaches of any type extremely seriously and they will be subject to our established procedure for managing data-related incidents. This entails a detailed risk-assessment exercise to determine the impact on the Data Subject together with actions designed to reduce the level of exposure wherever it is practical to do so.

Subject to the outcome of the risk assessment the Department may choose to inform the Data Subjects and the primary factor in this decision is the personal safety and security of those concerned. Regardless of whether the decision is taken to inform Data Subjects or not, every effort is made to remove the material in question from all platforms visible to the public.