Public bodies expose victims' details to domestic abusers

But the ICO cannot say if it is a widespread problem

Poor procedures and training have been blamed for human errors in matters of life and death.

A collection of public bodies, charitable organisations, law enforcers and lawyers have made personal data slips when handling domestic abuse cases in the last year, showing abusers where to find their victims in hiding.

The Information Commissioner's Office has reprimanded seven organisations for domestic abuse data breaches in the last 14 months, blaming poor procedures and bad training.

But with 1.7 million women and 700,000 men having experienced domestic abuse in 2022, according to Computing's own access to national statistical records, it was not clear if those reprimands indicated a widespread problem, or just a handful of sloppy cases.

The ICO was not prepared to speak about the full extent of the problem when called for comment. Its spokespeople had no idea of how many organisations in the UK handle such data.

Those seven breaches the authorities did know about were "extremely dangerous" and potentially "a matter of life or death", Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales, said in a written statement attached to the ICO press release.

"Women and children are at significant risk when leaving an abusive partner and reaching out to public services," said Farah Nazeer, chief executive of Women's Aid, in the same statement.

"Basic human error can have devastating consequences," added Geraldine Hanna, commissioner designate for victims of crime, Northern Ireland.

Among those reprimanded was Jackson Quinn, a solicitor firm in Nottingham.

When representing adopted children in the family court, the company accidentally sent their addresses to their father in prison, where he was put for repeatedly raping their mother.

South Wales Police accidentally told men being reported under domestic violence and child sex offender schemes the names of the women who reported them.

Wakefield Council sent child protection court papers with the address of a mother and her children to the father being charged with domestic violence.

Starts With You, a social housing maintence firm that does charitable work helping downtrodden people back on their feet, owned by housing association Bolton at Home, called a domestic abuse victim to tell them the address of her safe house, but instead left it in a message on her husband's phone.

University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, Nottinghamshire County Council and the Department for Work and Pensions were also reprimanded.

The reprimands are a new approach to dealing with slack data governance at the ICO. Where it would normally issue fines, the regulator is now working with organisations to fix procedures so they don't simply keep getting it wrong.