The FCA has admitted it mistakenly published confidential information on its website that related to complaints made against the regulator.

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request published on the FCA website in November 2019, the regulator announced it had recently been made aware that ‘certain underlying confidential information may have been accessible’ at the time.

The information concerned the number and nature of new complaints made against the FCA – which were handled by the regulator’s complaints team between 2 January 2018 and 17 July 2019 – and the FCA confirmed the publication of this information was a mistake.

No financial, payment card, passport or other identity information was included, and the FCA said that it had since removed the data from its website while announcing it would be undertaking a full review to identify the extent of any data that was made accessible.

“Our primary concern is to ensure the protection and safeguarding of individuals who may be identifiable from the data,” the FCA said in a statement.

“In many instances, the extent of the accessible information was only the name of the person making the complaint, with no further confidential details or specific details of their complaint.

“However, there are instances where additional confidential information was contained within the description of the complaint, for example an address, telephone number, or other information. Where this is the case, we are making direct contact with the individuals concerned to apologise and to advise them of the extent of the data disclosed and what the next steps might be.”

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