{"id":413537,"date":"2026-02-07T21:36:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T21:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/413537\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T21:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T21:36:21","slug":"transport-agency-apologises-for-ferry-consultation-data-breach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/413537\/","title":{"rendered":"Transport agency apologises for ferry consultation \u2018data breach\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

TRANSPORT Scotland has apologised for an email data breach which involved a number of Shetland residents.<\/p>\n

On Thursday the government agency emailed people who responded to its recent Northern Isles ferry service (NIFS) public consultation to inform them that the process had concluded.<\/p>\n

But it appears Transport Scotland copied in people\u2019s email addresses without doing so as a \u2018bcc\u2019, meaning that anyone who received it could see the personal email addresses of everyone else.<\/p>\n

One person from Shetland who received this email said there were more than 280 email addresses involved. However, the consultation overall received more than 1,000 responses.<\/p>\n

The email was recalled, although the notification for this included all of the email addresses again.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Transport Scotland confirmed it has \u201creported the breach in line with data protection requirements\u201d.<\/p>\n

They said: \u201cWe are aware of an error in the distribution of an email to NIFS consultation participants which resulted in recipients\u2019 email addresses being visible to others.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said the government agency \u201cacted immediately once the issue was identified\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe apologise for this error and for any concern it may have caused and have reinforced internal guidance on the importance of ensuring email addresses are not shared when sending communications to groups in response to consultation participation,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

Transport Scotland was consulting the public on the next Northern Isles ferry contract. The results from the consultation can be read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shetland News is asking its readers to consider paying for membership to get additional perks:<\/p>\n

Removal of third-party ads;
\nBookmark posts to read later;
\nExclusive curated weekly newsletter;
\nHide membership messages;
\nComments open for discussion.<\/p>\n

If you appreciate what we do and feel strongly about impartial local journalism, then please become a member of Shetland News by either making a single payment, or setting up a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription.<\/p>\n

Already a member? Sign in<\/a> to hide this message.<\/p>\n

\t\"Payment<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TRANSPORT Scotland has apologised for an email data breach which involved a number of Shetland residents. On Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[47916,84,1336,125789,138750,59,200,557,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-413537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-breach","tag-business","tag-data","tag-ferries","tag-ferry","tag-gb","tag-scotland","tag-transport","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}