BSB In Data Protection Howler As It Divulges 1,268 Barristers’ Email Addresses

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By Alex Aldridge on

Just when you thought that the Bar Standards Board (BSB) had run out of embarrassing gaffes to make (see, for example, here, here and here), it has made another embarrassing gaffe…

Recipients of the latest BSB “Chair’s Update” were surprised to find the email addresses of 1,268 of their fellow barristers appear alongside Baroness Ruth Deech’s words extolling the virtues of the Quality Assurance Scheme For Advocates (QASA).

As you can see from the redacted screenshot below of just a tiny fraction of the email addresses, it seems that someone – who knows, maybe even the Baroness herself? – elected to Cc, rather than Bcc, in the recipients to the update.

bsb-email#

A BSB spokesperson said: “We immediately contacted those affected to apologise and we are taking all appropriate steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

In other BSB news, the body has still not provided a response to last month’s story about mock paper questions featuring in the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) ethics exam. In a statement at the time, the BSB’s head of education and training, Simon Thornton-Wood, said: “We are aware of this very serious issue and are conducting a thorough investigation. It would be inappropriate to comment further until we have completed that process.”