Post Office avoids fine over leak of wrongfully convicted operators’ names

‘The postmasters have once again been let down by the Post Office,’ said Sally Anne Poole, the head of investigations at the ICO. Photograph: William Barton/Alamy

The Post Office has avoided a fine over a data breach that resulted in the mistaken online publication of the names and addresses of more than 500 post office operators it had been pursuing during the Horizon IT scandal.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has reprimanded the Post Office over the breach, in which the company’s press office accidentally published an unredacted version of a legal settlement document with the operators on its website.