News / Suspected data breach puts list of council tax debtors in hands of Stuart Hill
Shetland Islands Council is investigating the breach, with up to 130 people affected
A SUSPECTED data breach has allowed campaigner Stuart Hill to access the names and addresses of 130 people who were in council tax debt last year.
Shetland Islands Council (SIC) is investigating the potential breach, which was brought to its attention by Shetland News earlier this week.
Hill sent letters to more than 100 people on Tuesday, informing them he had come into possession of a list of people served with a summary warrant in July 2024 because of money they owed Shetland Islands Council.
He claimed that there were sitting councillors on the list and said a data breach had allowed him to come into possession of the information.
The SIC is still working to find where the potential breach could have occurred, and how many people may be affected.
It is understood that the SIC has begun apologising to the people who were contacted by Hill this week.
In his letter, Hill said it was “a measure of the data security at the Shetland Islands Council” that he had been able to access the information.
He said the SIC has “absolutely no authority” to charge council tax and invited people to join the Sovereign Nation of Shetland.
He told recipients he was “not intending to use this information for any purpose harmful” to them.
One person who received the letter – who did not want to be named – said they felt like their privacy had been “invaded on” by Hill.
“He said he was ‘not intending to use the information’, but that’s like being told by someone ‘I’m not going to hit you’ but you know they’re thinking about it,” they said.
“My big thing is, how has he got this?
“It’s embarrassing – if I owed a debt, it’s a private matter.”
Of Hill, they said: “I know this guy is an idiot, but he’s always been an idiot from afar.”
Campaigner Hill is well known for his claims that Shetland is not part of the Scotland or the UK and for his repeated refusal to co-operate with the court process.
In his letter he said the Sovereign Nation of Shetland, which Hill leads, “have a high success rate with debt and court problems generally”.
He said they were behind anyone who decides not to pay council tax, and were “willing to do anything we can to help”.
The SIC has “no authority in Shetland”, Hill added.
Hill would not tell Shetland News how he had come to have the list of people owing the SIC money for council tax in July 2024.
But asked whether it was because of a data breach at the council, he said: “Of course it’s a data breach”.
He claimed to have the names and addresses of 130 people, including a “couple of councillors”, all of which he has written letters to.
One person had already called him to ask for more information about how the council had no authority in Shetland, Hill claimed.
Hill was unrepentant about how people may feel that he had their private information and was writing to them about it.
“The fact I have got it may be harmful to them, but that’s not my problem,” he said.
“I can’t see that that’s a breach on my part.”
Asked whether his intention for the letter was to sign more up to the Sovereign Nation of Shetland – which he has encouraged in his letter – or to embarrass the SIC, he said: “All of that”.
He said he had not told the SIC that he had the information.
The recipient of the letter that Shetland News spoke to said their letter had come first class through the Royal Mail on Wednesday.
They immediately called the council’s revenues department to query if they did owe council tax, and were told that they did – but that the SIC was taking extra payments from them to make up the deficit.
They said it was “upsetting” to find out about the debt through a letter from Hill.
Hill said he has been submitting regular freedom of information (FOI) requests with governments and organisations across the UK to try and prove that Shetland is not owned by Scotland or the UK.
The UK Government’s legal department had told him they “didn’t hold that information”, Hill claimed, which he said was a “fundamental problem for Shetland”.
“None of these organisations can show they have authority here, and that includes the Shetland Islands Council,” Hill added.
He suggested this meant that no election which had taken place in Shetland had been legal.
Hill said he was “a little bit fed up” of news stories about how he “fails again”.
“Stuart Hill will continue to fail again until Stuart Hill wins,” he added.
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