McDonald’s has apologised for alarming customers after it accidentally sent details for a practice Monopoly database.
The fast food chain mistakenly exposed username and passwords for both its production and staging database servers for the popular Monopoly promotion.
McDonald’s has blamed the mistake on an “administrative error” but said no customer data or personal information was put at risk.
It has also claimed no winning Monopoly codes could have been accessed.
The practice database was accidentally sent out by McDonald’s in an email to winning Monopoly customers over the weekend.
Players would usually receive an email congratulating them for playing and giving them details about how to claim their prize.
The Maccies gaffe was first reported by Bleeping Computer who was alerted by concerned Twitter users.
One person said: “Okay McDonald’s - why did my email confirming a prize win contain the credentials to your staging and production databases for the Monopoly prize system?”
Another said: "I’ve been sent an email as part of the Monopoly promotion that seems to contain the login details to the data base for this promotion!"
Were you sent the gaffe email from McDonald's? Let us know in the comments.
McDonald's Monopoly returned on August 25 and will run for six weeks, with prizes up for grabs including £100,000, an Ibiza villa or UK getaway holiday, and Lay-Z Spa hot tubs.
Maccies will also be giving away 1,000 VIP loyalty cards that entitle the lucky holder to one free medium meal per week for one year.
Monopoly has had a two-year absence because of the coronavirus pandemic, which saw it cancelled for the first time ever in 2020.
McDonald's was due to start the promotion shortly before it closed all 1,350 branches on March 23 last year.
A spokesperson said: “Due to an administrative error, a small number of customers received details for a staging website by email.
“No personal details were compromised or shared with other parties. Those affected will be contacted to reassure them that this was a human error and that their information remains safe.
“We take data privacy very seriously and apologise for any undue concern this error has caused.”
