Farmers impacted by Natural England data breach

Natural England has acknowledged a minor data breach after sensitive information concerning participants in a Penwith Moors SSSI consultation was inadvertently made public. The released data disclosed opposing views towards the proposals and included personally identifying information (PII) of at least 38 individuals, including farmers, who had submitted their opinions through the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra) Citizen Space portal. It is believed that Natural England employed automatic redaction software that failed to adequately redact emails, addresses, and telephone numbers. However, there was also a page containing the unredacted Personal Identifiable Information (PII), hosted by a third-party provider external to the Defra group which exposed the data, has since been taken down in response to inquiries