Council bosses have warned nearly 30 Leicester taxi firms not to open a spreadsheet carrying confidential information which it sent to them by mistake.

Leicester City Council has warned cabbies if they disclose anything in file, containing passenger information, they will be breaching the Data Protection Act.

A councillor who was made aware of the email error now fears the council has a significant data breach which could lead to a safeguarding issue relating to the details of children.

The council says 27 firms received the unsolicited email at 7.41am on Monday from the council Passenger and Transport Services Team (PATS).

The following day the PATS team sent out a second email saying: “This email had a large file (23Mb) attached to it called “Taxi Tender Live v 3” that contains passenger information and was sent in error to your company.

“Please delete this email.

“Please then delete the email from your “Deleted items” folder

“Please do not try to open or read it.

“If you have opened/read it, then please do not disclose its contents or forward any information from it to any person or organisation.

“To do so is a Section 55 offence under the Data Protection Act 1998.

“Please reply to this address as soon as possible to confirm that you have received this email and acted upon it, and have not (and will not) open it or share/read its contents and have completed all the actions listed above.”

Conservative opposition councillor Ross Grant said: “I was alerted to this by one of the firms who received an email - which they didn’t ask for - followed by a second one threatening them if they share the information.

“The council look like it is trying to cover up a potentially serious mistake it has made.

“We could be talking about a large - 23Mb is a big file - breach of data protection.

“There are potential safeguarding issues if the council has just sent out passengers' information to firms.

"The council has no way of knowing what will happen to that information now it has mistakenly shared it.

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