New Zealand's Financial Markets Authority has apologised for failing to keep documents about complaints that people had sent it private. One of its staff inadvertently uploaded the documents - which it had received between 2015 and 2017 - onto one of its online portals.

The FMA first learned of the disaster when a journalist rang it up on 21 October. It shut down its website to prevent further leakages, putting it back into service two days later. By then it had decided that no further confidential information was at risk.

“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,” said FMA Chief Executive Rob Everett.

The FMA claims to have spotted only six cases in which someone might have gained access to sensitive personal information that people have sent it. It has contacted the people involved and claims, somewhat disconcertingly, that it has told them to take certain steps in future to protect their information.

A preliminary review has identified 27 instances in which Internet users downloaded documents that supported complaints. Of these, it says, six contained sensitive personal - including financial - information.

The FMA is still investigating, but believes that information supplied through an online complaints form between 2015 and 2017 'flowed' into a folder holding information to be uploaded to the FMA website. It holds that at no point could the information be found by browsing its website.

Someone accessed all but two of the documents after the FMA changed its automated search algorithms on 30 September. Other government agencies and departments have been involved in the débâcle.

Everett claims that his staff rectified the problem 'immediately' when they became aware of it. He is now trying to reassure the public that from this moment on they can expect the FMA to keep their information confidential.