A UNIVERSITY has been forced to apologise after accidentally publishing staff salaries online.

The University of Brighton included sensitive information about employees in response to a Freedom of Information request about pay scales.

The university has said sorry to staff for the blunder and the sensitive information was removed after four days of being visible on the internet.

However some employees said they were still upset.

In a letter to staff the university’s registrar Stephen Dudderidge said: “In response to a recent request under the Freedom of Information Act the university disclosed a spreadsheet of anonymised pay data for 2016 analysed by the total wage cost by pay grade. The university’s response was uploaded to the website WhatDoTheyKnow.com.

“Following publication, we were notified by WhatDoTheyKnow.com that our spreadsheet included a tab containing the individual pay details used to calculate the information they had requested. This additional tab included individual names and pay. No other sensitive data, such as bank details, national insurance numbers or addresses were disclosed.

“Our internal audit team will be investigating the matter in full.

“The university fully accepts that this breach should not have happened and on behalf of the university I would like to offer a sincere and unreserved apology to all employees.”

The university has not said how many staff were affected but it is thought the information of all 5,000 employees could have been included.

The university has voluntarily reported the mistake to the Information Commissioner. Breaches of this scale can result in significant penalties, including criminal prosecutions and fines of up to £500,000.

One member of staff, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “They might have apologised but it doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence.

“They said that no bank account details or national insurance numbers were disclosed but if this can happen once what’s to stop it happening again? It’s a pretty amateur mistake.”