Costa Coffee owner Whitbread affected by PageUp data breach

UK-based hotel and restaurant company Whitbread has confirmed it was also affected by the PageUp data breach that occurred in June. The personal data of current and prospective employees who used the Whitbread online recruitment system were impacted.

The breach took place in June at Australian online recruitment services provider PageUp that manages Whitbread's online recruitment system. Numerous Whitbread brands including Premier Inn and UK outlets of Costa Coffee were also affected.

The firm said in an email "there is a possibility that any data submitted in the course of recruitment may have been accessed and could potentially be used for identity theft."

The company did not specify how many individuals were impacted by the breach.

However, Whitbread said contact details, biographical details and employment details were been affected in the data breach. The firm has since suspended the use of PageUp services following the breach. It has also advised users to change their password if they have used the same login credentials on multiple services.

“At Whitbread we take protecting your data very seriously and we are very sorry that this has happened,” the email read. “We choose our partner organizations very carefully and take every possible step to ensure your data is always kept secure. We value all our job applicants and we want to repeat that we are very sorry that this has happened.”

The massive PageUp breach affected numerous companies that use its services. The firm said data accessed may have included the personal details of employees, details of job applications lodged with the service and employment reference information. However, it noted it was currently unaware of any fraudulent activity related to the data it holds on its systems.