Britain’s policing minister says “human error” has caused hundreds of thousands of DNA records and other crime suspect data to be erased from the national police computer
LONDON – Britain’s policing minister said on Monday that “human error” has caused hundreds of thousands of DNA records and other data on suspected criminals to be erased from the national police computer.
Kit Malthouse told legislators in the House of Commons that the accident occurred during a “regular cleaning process” on the computer, which contains 13 million records. He said that about 400,000 records have been deleted, including 213,000 crime records and 170,000 prison records.
“It is clear that this situation is very serious,” said Malthouse, adding that “we will know the full extent of the impact of this issue in the coming days”.
Labor lawmaker Yvette Cooper said it is “very difficult to understand how 400,000 records can be deleted from such a crucial system without an adequate backup system in place”.
Malthouse said the authorities are trying to recover the data, but he cannot guarantee that no criminal investigation will be hampered by the error. He said the government is working “to ensure that any operational impact is avoided or mitigated”.