Bearsted Parish Council statement on GDPR

At a meeting of the Parish Council held on 15^th November 2022, a document comprising an email trail containing the personal email addresses of some 17 residents was circulated to all Councillors and a copy was also passed to members of the public who were at the meeting. Several of the residents whose personal email addresses had been exposed made individual complaints to the Information Commissioner alleging that the Council had breached the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

The Information Commissioner has now ruled that the Council did break GDPR and has required all Councillors to undertake GDPR training to avoid any further breaches. This is in hand. The Council apologies unreservedly to all those residents whose personal email addresses were exposed. It would, however, point out that 9 of the 12 Councillors who attended the meeting on 15 November last year, including those that distributed the email trail, are no longer in post.