The incident has significant impact on the mental state

Jul 6, 2015 14:22 GMT  ·  By

A privacy mishap from a mental health organization resulted in leaking email addresses of hundreds of people seeking support for anxiety problems, which most likely does not contribute to improving their mental state.

For individuals suffering from this sort of disorder, an incident that does not trigger a nervous reaction in most of us can increase their fear and carry a negative impact on any progress they made.

The “blind carbon copy” field was not used for email delivery

A worker for the Mental Health Advocacy and Peer Support (MHAPS) in New Zealand was responsible for the accident. General manager Sue Ricketts said that the worker was “distraught” when they delivered the messages and forgot to hide the recipients’ addresses.

The result was that more than 200 people, all signed up for receiving news about relaxation classes, got to see the contact details of fellows suffering from the same disorder.

“We are absolutely mortified with this,” Ricketts told Stuff news outlet. She apologized for the incident and added that, to prevent similar errors in the future, sending of all bulk messages would be checked by a second person before the “send” button is hit.

Debbie Wilson, a member of the group, noticed the blunder and informed MHAPS. This is not the first time the organization failed to use the “BCC” field in the email client, she said.

Personal apology offered

However, despite being only a leaked email address and the low risk potential, the moment Wilson saw the list, she broke in tears, as part of her anxiety issues.

“I barely even go out of the house unless I'm with somebody, I can't do too much. I'm not saying everybody on the list is affected by it, but one's enough,” Wilson added.

Ricketts offered a personal apology, but this is highly unlikely to be comforting for Wilson’s state of distress caused by the incident.