Victims of crime and witnesses are among those hit by a huge data leak of information for 1,230 people given out with Freedom of Information (FoI) responses by two English police forces.
In a statement today Suffolk and Norfolk constabularies revealed they would be notifying more than one thousand two hundred people whose data has been breached.
It is the latest data breach involving police responses to FoI requests, coming after the Police Service of Northern Ireland published a document which included the names and other details of around 10,000 officers and staff.
A joint statement said: “Norfolk and Suffolk Constabularies have identified an issue relating to a very small percentage of responses to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for crime statistics, issued between April 2021 and March 2022.
“A technical issue has led to some raw data belonging to the constabularies being included within the files produced in response to the FOI requests in question. The data was hidden from anyone opening the files, but it should not have been included.
“The data impacted was information held on a specific police system and related to crime reports. The data includes personal identifiable information on victims, witnesses, and suspects, as well as descriptions of offences. It related to a range of offences, including domestic incidents, sexual offences, assaults, thefts and hate crime.”
