Two British police forces admit breach of sensitive data

Two British police forces have confirmed that they have mismanaged the sensitive information of numerous individuals. The Norfolk and Suffolk police agencies said that the affected individuals are victims of crime, suspects, and witnesses.

Most misused data connect to crimes, such as domestic abuse, sexual offences, thefts, hate crimes, and assaults.

 

Both British police forces apologised for the incident.

 

The two British police forces explained that 1,230 individuals were affected by the leaked files after they received a request from the Freedom of Information group. However, the Information Commissioner’s Office still placed the agencies under formal investigation, which could result in hefty fines.

Reports claimed the latest blunder in handling data had again affected law enforcement agencies. Recently, the Police Service of Northern Ireland has also left officers concerned about their well-being after data exposure. These agencies also shared some back-office services to cut costs.

These instances occurred after both constabularies had identified an issue relevant to a very minute sample size of responses to FoI requests for crime stats issued between April 2021 and March 2022.

The technical issue has resulted in some raw information owned by the constabularies being included in the files produced in response to the FoI requests. No one could open the leaked data, but the answer should not have such details to protect the individuals involved.

The impacted data is information stored on a specific police system and has links to crime reports. The confirmed data in the leak are personally identifiable information (PII) of victims, witnesses, and suspects and a description of the violations. These offences have connections to multiple crimes, which are mentioned earlier.

Further investigation of the incidents has not found evidence that unauthorised individuals have accessed the exposed information. The law enforcement agencies affected by the event have clearly stated their sincere apology after the mishandled information.

Cybersecurity experts are waiting for the conclusion of the investigation to find out if there are entities that obtained the data. These details could be detrimental to everyone involved as malicious entities could target witnesses.