A council has admitted leaking personal details of nearly 2,000 private tenants.

Basingstoke and Deane, in Hampshire, mistakenly attached a spreadsheet showing the details when answering by email a Freedom of Information request.

This was about the number of people receiving Local Housing Allowance and living in private rental accommodation.

The information given out included the names, addresses, dates of birth and national insurance numbers of 1,900 people.

Absurdly, while this was a charter for identity theft, the identity of the person who made the Freedom of Information request is not known by the council.

The council has now sent letters of apology to all the tenants, and informed the police and Information Commissioner. It has also set up a helpline.

A spokeswoman said that the council did not know who had requested the information and attempts to contact them had failed.

Robin Craggs, one of those whose data was handed over, said: “I’ve taken the utmost care in shredding any documents that have got my personal details to try and make sure I’m not a victim of identity theft, then my local council come and undo that for me in one fell swoop.”

Council director Laura Taylor said: “I am very sorry that this mistake has happened and for the inconvenience and distress this may cause.

“We take the security of personal information extremely seriously and we get a high volume of Freedom of Information requests.

“We have taken immediate steps to further tighten our procedures and will act on any lessons from the review and investigation.

“It is likely that the person who got the information was making inquiries to lots of different councils to compare statistics and will not even realise that they have the personal information, but we cannot be 100% certain.”