Fellow American Studies student Sophie Atherton, who has been assured by the university that it is investigating, added: "It shouldn't have happened in the first place."

She described the department as "not very supportive at all" and said that their response to the data leak was "not good enough".

The 22-year-old added: "I'd like to see handwritten apologies to every single person on that list.

"I know that the university is being watched by the Office of Academic Advising, and the Competition and Markets Authority, and this is just another thing that is coming from that specific department.

"There are so many flaws in that department (AMA) as a whole.

"I've worked very closely with someone in the students' union advice team for the last 15 months. I actually sent it across to him and he said 'They've violated data protection and you're well within your rights to make a complaint', which I think I'm very likely to do next week."

The email was received by students on Friday and sent from a UEA member of staff's university email address.

A second email was sent shortly afterwards, from the same account, which said: "You may have erroneously received an email with a spreadsheet attachment.