The woman has changed her identity more than once in the twenty years since she was linked to national security issues involving special forces, but she and contacts remain concerned her enemies could still seek revenge. She is not listed on the electoral roll and care has always been taken to ensure her contact details did not appear in any directory.

She signed up to Tiscali broadband in 2004 and in 2007 decided to also subscribe to its phone service via a fully unbundled line. The firm took over the line on September 6 2007, having been told several times by the woman that the her details must not be shared with anyone. Tiscali sales representatives assured her the information would remain secret.

Despite the guarantees, Tiscali provided BT with the woman's name address and phone number sometime before the end of November 2007, the deadline for inclusion in the next phone book. BT - which is not responsible for checking whether competitors' customers are ex-directory - duly published it in February 2008, online to the whole world, as well as in thousands of paper copies distributed locally.