New Beginning denies selling clients' names to distressed-mortgages fund
The Data Protection Commissioner is investigating a data security breach at mortgage campaigners New Beginning.
According to The Mail on Sunday, 1,500 homeowners had their financial details sold to a €2bn overseas investment fund that aims to buy up 15,000 distressed homes here.
The Malta-based fund Arizun reportedly used the New Beginning database to calculate the profitability of the scheme before approaching Irish banks to negotiate the purchase of thousands of distressed loans.
Speaking to Savage Sunday on Today FM, co-founder Ross Maguire confirmed New Beginning had been working with Arizun on the scheme, but denied selling clients' details and said an email in which the names were listed was sent by mistake.
In other communications between Arizun and New beginning, homeowners' names had been omitted.
"There was an inadvertent email sent by somebody in New Beginning to one person in our partner's firm which included 1,500 names," he said.
"When that was realised, our partner agreed to, and did, delete that from their system…So that was a mistake. The question is whether it constitutes a breach of data protection."
