FMA apologises for exposing complaints on website
Thursday, 7 November 2019
The Financial Markets Authority has identified six cases where sensitive personal information provided to it may have been accessed on its website.
The regulator apologised on Thursday for exposing information from complaints including documents could have been seen via internet searches. Complaints documents sent to the regulator between 2015 and 2017 were potentially accessible.
A preliminary review had identified 27 instances where documents that supported complaints were accessed by internet searches, it said in a statement. Of these, six contained sensitive personal information such as financial information.
The documents were inadvertently uploaded to a portal on the financial watchdog's website.
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Financial Markets Authority (FMA) chief executive Rob Everett said it had shut down its website after a media enquiry on October 21.
He said any information provided to the FMA was now held confidentially.
'We apologise to those people who supplied us with information and also to the wider public for this error. Their trust and confidence is critical to us.'
The FMA had contacted the people affected.
The regulator had engaged KPMG to assist its investigations into the cause and extent of the incident and a full independent review wuld be undertaken.
Complaints can no longer be uploaded via the FMA website.