HIV patient name leak results in fine for UK's National Health Service - CNET

The UK's National Health Service was issued a £180,000 fine on Monday for mistakenly leaking the names of more than 700 HIV patients.

In September 2015, the 56 Dean Street clinic, a sexual health clinic in London's Soho, sent out a newsletter that revealed the email addresses of HIV patients to one another. The addresses had been copied into the 'to' field of the email, instead of the 'bcc' field, which obscures the names of recipients from one another.

The Information Commissioner's office, which serves as the UK's data protection watchdog, investigated the breach and found that a similar mistake had been made back in 2010. It issued a fine to the NHS Trust responsible for the clinic, which will be paid to the govement.

"The clinic served a small area of London, and we know that people recognised other names on the list, and feared their own name would be recognised too," said Information Christopher Graham in a statement. "That our investigation found this wasn't the first mistake of this type by the Trust only adds to what was a serious breach of the law."

Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust did not immediately respond to a request for comment.