Bus worker fired after sending ‘creepy’ messages to woman using test-and-trace details

A bus worker who sent ‘creepy’ messages to a nanny after getting her details from a test-and-trace form has been fired.

Kat Kingsley, 25, gave her name and phone number to the Original Tour in Windsor on 10 September in case she needed to be contacted if there was a coronavirus outbreak.

But she was shocked when a member of staff on the bus allegedly used her number to message her twice asking to see her again.

A spokesperson for Original Tour said the employee had now been fired, after an investigation.

The firm is also introducing a new system for test-and-trace where personal data will be stored more securely.

Reacting to the news, Ms Kingsley told the BBC: "He didn't resign, he went through the disciplinary process and I think he expected to keep his job but I got a call yesterday to say he had been fired.

"I think it should teach him a lesson and hopefully deter anyone else who was considering breaching data [protection]."

In the messages, that were sent three days after the trip, the man told her that she had been "living in his head” and admitted "knowing all the risk involved in using data that's not supposed to be for me".

Ms Kingsley, who had got on the bus with a child she was looking after, described the messages she then received on 13 September as "creepy" and said they left her "weirded out".

A message read: "Anyway, apart all the due apologies you owe me for all this silliness and stupidity you generated in me, I need you to tell me something to make me finally realise that that smile wasn't that gorgeous and it’s not really you, but the fact that I like all the Kats in general."

Ms Kingsley had added the government “really need to re-assess the track and trace system” as a result of her experience.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "The unauthorised use of customers' information provided for contact tracing is unacceptable.”

Coronavirus: what happened today

Click here to sign up to the latest news, advice and information with our daily Catch-up newsletter