An investigation by Adur District Council and Worthing Borough Council into a data breach involving the systems of contractor Capita is continuing.

Earlier this month the councils became aware of a potential breach at Capita, involving systems the company was managing for Adur and Worthing in February 2021.

Capita then wrote to the councils on May 16 this year to highlight the breach. It said that the breach did not involve personal data.

The internal investigation by the councils has involved reviewing each of the files that Capita has said was involved.

The councils said this investigation has revealed that those files did in fact contain some personal data.

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But they confirmed there were no names or bank or building society details of residents involved and at this stage it considers that the risk to the residents appears minimal.

However, it is continuing to investigate the breach and is liaising with the national cyber security team at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and other local authorities affected, to get further information from Capita.

An Adur and Worthing Councils spokesman said: “We are extremely unhappy with both the data breach itself and Capita’s failure to provide us with swift and accurate information about what they have discovered.

“We treat data protection extremely seriously and are currently identifying each and every one of our residents that has been affected.

“At this stage we believe that there is only a minimal risk to our residents but we will be contacting them to make them aware of what has happened and will keep them updated.

“We are also alerting the Information Commissioner to what we have discovered and will continue to investigate how the breach happened.

“There is no need for residents to do anything unless the councils have contacted them on this issue.”

However, if residents have any concerns they can contact the councils’ data protection officer by emailing data.protection@adur-worthing.gov.uk.

Capita was asked for comment.