Tories face inquiry after voter data leaked

The Conservatives' campaign in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election suffered an embarrassing last-minute setback when the party published the personal details of more than 8,000 voters.

The Tories will be investigated by the data protection watchdog after making public the names, addresses, phone numbers, financial status and voting intentions of 8,575 key voters.

Tory campaign workers sent out an email to an overseas journalist containing six files detailing target voters in the constituency. The mistake has echoes of the "Datagate"affair in which the Government lost child benefit records on 25 million people last autumn. But it may have come to light too late to revive Labour's prospects in the crucial by-election.

David Smith, the Deputy Information Commissioner, told the Mirror newspaper: "It is a serious concern if people's personal details and voting intentions have got into the public domain. Voting information is particularly sensitive.We will be launching an investigation."

A Tory spokesman said: "An email was sent in error to the wrong person. We discovered immediately what had happened and have received written confirmation from the original recipient that the information had been destroyed."

Labour said the error showed the Tories were not fit to govern and accused David Cameron of hypocrisy because he led the criticism over "Datagate". A Labour spokesman said: "This shows the Conservatives should not be allowed to run a bath, let alone run the country."

Click here to have your say

Interesting? Click here to explore further