British Travel Company Breached, Hundreds of Customers’ Information Exposed

A data protection breach at Thomson, a British travel firm, has led to the accidental exposure of more than 450 customers’ personal information. Passenger details, including home addresses, telephone numbers, names and flight information, were unintentionally disclosed in an email, which the company said it quickly recalled. Thomson released a statement apologizing for the “genuine error.” However, the company noted it would not be offering affected customers with any compensation. “We are aware of an email that was sent in error, which shared a small number of customers’ information,” read the statement.

“The error was identified very quickly and the email was recalled, which was successful in a significant number of cases. We would like to apologize to our customers involved and reassure them that we take data security very seriously. We are urgently investigating the matter to ensure the situation will not be repeated.”

The email containing the personal information of 458 Thomson customers from around the UK was reportedly sent on August 15. The travel company did not announce details of how the breach occurred. The news comes shortly after the massive breach of the extramarital affairs website Ashley Madison, in which the data of about 39 million subscribers was recently leaked online. The company is now facing a $578 million class-action lawsuit filed last week by two Canadian firms.