The traumatic, sensitive details of a Victorian mother's life lingered online for days after the education department thought it had dealt with a privacy breach.
The woman was one of 120 people affected when the Victorian education department inadvertently published personal details of parents online after receiving 558 submissions on proposed new regulations for state education.
The department thought it had taken the documents offline, but they were still publicly available five days after the breach, with several still listed on Google's search engine on Wednesday afternoon.
The woman told AAP she had poured her "heart and soul" into her submission, which included personal details and significant traumatic life events.
The homeschooler queried whether confidentiality requests were double-checked before files were uploaded.
"It felt like we weren't being heard, our submissions weren't being taken seriously, and that we were just a number uploaded."
She said the department must read and learn from the submissions "because this is what the whole process about".
Home Education Network co-ordinator Sue Wight said four people had their contact information in the text of the document and another two had asked that their entire submission be treated in confidence.
"Home educators are very distressed because they told their stories in a personal way ... only to have their privacy invaded in this way," Ms Wight told AAP.
"They went into detail because they wanted to demonstrate how inappropriate the draft regulations would be."
The department told AAP it was working with Google to ensure all cached versions were taken down and that it was "deeply sorry" for the breach, which would be independently investigated.
"We understand the seriousness of this incident and we are contacting those affected to apologise directly," a spokesman said in a statement on Wednesday morning.
Premier Daniel Andrews extended the government's apologies and promised a "proper inquiry".
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