LONDON, United Kingdom (CMC) — The British government was forced to issue yet another apology to the so-called Windrush generation after it was discovered that more than 500 private email addresses were mistakenly shared with recipients of a mailing list for a compensation scheme announced by London last week.

The Windrush generation are the estimated half a million people, who between 1948 and 1970, moved from the Caribbean to Britain, which in 1948 faced severe labour shortages in the wake of the Second World War.

The government last week agreed to pay up to £200 million (US$260 million) in compensation to people whose lives were damaged by the Home Office’s mistaken classification of them as illegal immigrants.

In a ministerial statement Immigration Minister, Caroline Nokes, said that an email sent to people and organisations who had registered an interest in the compensation scheme included details of other recipients’ email addresses, which amounted to a breach of data protection requirements.

“Regrettably, in promoting the scheme via email to interested parties, an administrative error was made, which has meant data protection requirements have not been met, for which the Home Office apologises unreservedly.

“This occurred in emails sent to some of the individuals and organisations who had registered an interest in being kept informed about the launch of the compensation scheme, which included other recipients’ email addresses. Five batches of emails, each with 100 recipients, were affected. No other personal data was included,” Nokes said.

“A recall was commenced as soon as the problem had been identified. The departmental data protection officer has been informed and an internal review will be conducted to ensure this cannot happen again. The department has voluntarily notified the Information Commissioner’s Office of the incident. I am firmly committed to doing right by the Windrush generation,” she added.

The written statement also confirmed the definition of serious criminality for the purposes of the compensation scheme was defined as a conviction that received a sentence of imprisonment of four years or more.

Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, said there would be no cap on the fund, making it impossible to estimate how much money would eventually be paid to victims.

Payments will not be restricted to people from the Caribbean but made to anyone who has been in the United Kingdom since 1988 who has been wrongly classified as being in Britain illegally and as a result lost the right to work, access to healthcare and the ability to rent property.