An SA Government department has accidentally revealed the email addresses of thousands of grant applicants. 

RevenueSA emailed around 2,000 HomeBuilder Grant applicants last week, but inadvertently included all the email addresses of other people it was sent to.

The email was sent to people who had started but had not yet completed their application process for the $25,000 grants. 

“Due to human error, the email was inadvertently sent showing all email recipient addresses to the receiver (contained in the carbon copy, rather than the blind carbon copy Outlook function),” SA Treasurer Rob Lucas said.

“No other identifying information could be viewed by the recipients.

“Upon becoming aware of the issue, RevenueSA immediately recalled the email message and sent a replacement email apologising for the error.

“I am advised RevenueSA will contact any applicants who have raised concerns about the error, and will also encourage recipients to not use the disclosed email addresses for any purpose.”

Reports say RevenueSA then sent an email recalling the original email, but also included everyone's email addresses.

“RevenueSA treats privacy issues very seriously and will review staff training policies regarding the collection, handling, use and disclosure of information in order to comply with the Privacy Act 1988,” the agency wrote.

“Going forward, our office will review our data breach response plan and preventative measures and ensure that mass emails are checked more thoroughly to ensure that a data breach like this does not occur again.”