Datam obtained by whistleblowers is rarely checked before it's published

Hundreds of innocent people including rape victims, Saudis who are secretly gay and families embroiled in paternity disputes have had their private details exposed by WikiLeaks.

The radical whistleblowing website regularly openly publishes data it obtains from government cables and emails.

But among the documents are scores of medical, financial and personal records of several hundred people.

WikiLeaks has inadvertently outed two teenage rape victims, identified a Saudi man at the centre of a paternity dispute and published the name of a Saudi citizen who is gay - punishable by death in the Muslim kingdom.

Hundreds of innocent people including rape victims, Saudis who are secretly gay and families embroiled in paternity disputes have had their private details exposed by WikiLeaks. Medical files are pictured

In the past year alone, WikiLeaks has published medical files belonging to scores of ordinary citizens while many hundreds more have had sensitive family, financial or identity records posted to the web.

In two particularly egregious cases, WikiLeaks named teenage rape victims.

In a third case, the site published the name of a Saudi citizen arrested for being gay, an extraordinary move given that homosexuality is punishable by death in the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom.

'They published everything: my phone, address, name, details,' said a Saudi man who said he was bewildered that WikiLeaks had revealed the details of a paternity dispute with a former partner.

'If the family of my wife saw this ... Publishing personal stuff like that could destroy people.'

The number of people affected easily reaches into the hundreds. Paul Dietrich, a transparency activist, said a partial scan of the Saudi cables alone turned up more than 500 passport, identity, academic or employment files.

Jordanian Dr Nayef al Fayez said medical records of a brain cancer patient of his was among those contained in the Saudi leaks

Three dozen records pertaining to family issues were found in the cables - including messages about marriages, divorces, missing children, elopements and custody battles.

Many are very personal, like the marital certificates which reveal whether the bride was a virgin.

Others deal with Saudis who are deeply in debt, including one man who says his wife stole his money.

One divorce document details a male partner's infertility. Others identify the partners of women suffering from sexually transmitted diseases including HIV and Hepatitis C.

WikiLeaks' stated mission is to bring censored or restricted material 'involving war, spying and corruption' into the public eye, describing the trove amassed thus far as a 'giant library of the world's most persecuted documents'.

WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange is still holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London

The library is growing quickly, with half a million files from the U.S. Democratic National Committee, Turkey's governing party and the Saudi Foreign Ministry added in the last year or so. But the library is also filling with rogue data, including computer viruses, spam, and a compendium of personal records.

The Saudi diplomatic cables alone hold at least 124 medical files, with some describing patients with psychiatric conditions, seriously ill children or refugees.

'This has nothing to do with politics or corruption,' said Dr Nayef al-Fayez, a consultant in the Jordanian capital of Amman who confirmed that a brain cancer patient of his was among those whose details were published to the web.

Dr Adnan Salhab, a retired practitioner in Jordan who also had a patient named in the files, expressed anger when shown the document.

'This is illegal what has happened,' he said in a telephone interview. 'It is illegal!'

One woman named in the files, a partially disabled Saudi who had secretly gone into debt to support a sick relative, said she was devastated. She had kept her plight from members of her own family.

'This is a disaster,' she said. 'What if my brothers, neighbours, people I know or even don't know have seen it? What is the use of publishing my story?'

Three Saudi cables published by WikiLeaks identified domestic workers who had been tortured or sexually abused by their employers, giving the women's full names and passport numbers.

One cable named a male teenager who was raped by a man while abroad, a second identified another male teenager who was so violently raped his legs were broken, a third outlined the details of a Saudi man detained for 'sexual deviation' - a derogatory term for homosexuality.

The Democratic National Committee files published last month carried more than two dozen Social Security and credit card numbers.

Two of the people named in the files said they were targeted by identity thieves following the leak, including a retired U.S. diplomat who said he also had to change his number after being bombarded by threatening messages.

WikiLeaks has not commented.