Police ineptitude

[Cowabunga]

Just noticed that the Police Service has 'accidentally' wiped 400,000 'customer' records, including fingerprints and DNA. Either they are completely incompetent blithering idiots, or as I suspect, there is more to this than meets the eye.

Surely they will, like any normal computer user, have two on-site and an off-site back up for these files? If not, why not? It is absolutely basic management to have at least one current and one archive backup, rotated so that one is completely up to date and the other no more than a week out of date.

That they appear not to, or claim not to have such a backup and have deleted such critical files, it stinks of organised crime corruption to me. No authorised used apart from those 'managing' the system should have the ability to wipe such files even if they wanted to.

 

[sjt01]

Just noticed that the Police Service has 'accidentally' wiped 400,000 'customer' records, including fingerprints and DNA. Either they are completely incompetent blithering idiots, or as I suspect, there is more to this than meets the eye.

Surely they will, like any normal computer user, have two on-site and an off-site back up for these files? If not, why not? It is absolutely basic management to have at least one current and one archive backup, rotated so that one is completely up to date and the other no more than a week out of date.

That they appear not to, or claim not to have such a backup and have deleted such critical files, it stinks of organised crime corruption to me. No authorised used apart from those 'managing' the system should have the ability to wipe such files even if they wanted to.

Blame the Government employing Fujitsu to do the computing, the same company who tried to deny that they had screwed up resulting in Postmasters being jailed. It's not the Police, it is the software management foisted on them

 

[Cowabunga]

Blame the Government employing Fujitsu to do the computing, the same company who tried to deny that they had screwed up resulting in Postmasters being jailed. It's not the Police, it is the software management foisted on them

Are you telling me seriously that nobody in the Police noticed or cared about backing up the data, or even at Fujitsu? I don't believe it. Can't believe it. Don't want to believe that such crass ineptitude at many levels is even possible in this day and age.

 

[milkloss]

I'm guessing that there are certain times when data needs scrubbing. Accused of pedofilia/wife beating or whatever and proved innocent then I'd want every last ounce of data that was taken during that investigation purged forever and never to be seen, or possibly seen, again.

 

[milkloss]

But I agree, it's farcical.

 

[Cowabunga]

I'm guessing that there are certain times when data needs scrubbing. Accused of pedofilia/wife beating or whatever and proved innocent then I'd want every last ounce of data that was taken during that investigation purged forever and never to be seen, or possibly seen, again.

Yes, you would delete one file, as one does with a calf that dies. But 400,000 files?

It reminds me, way back in the late 1990's I had a couple of lads working for me and one was very keen and I let him update the cow management records and use its facilities to create action lists and so on. One day, somehow, he managed to wipe the whole bloody lot. However I had two sets of back ups and the latest only missed a few AI's that could be easily re-entered. This was on Windows 3.1 I think, or possible W98 and the backups filled about five floppy disks. Times have changed, but good data management has the same basic principles today as from the early days and even for manual ledger keeping in book form, from cow software to massive police computer databases. So there just is no excuse for not backing up critical data. All data!

 

[Cowabunga]

But I agree, it's farcical.

It's criminal!

 

[Lincs Lass]

Wonder how many of their own inersanctum were on file .

 

[Mark Hatton]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they manage retrieve it somehow, systems very rarely now allow you to accidentally loose that amount of data without going through many steps to confirm it. I doubt very much it was a 'policeman' that did the deed, more likely to be a civilian employee or contractor. Like the title of the thread, the news headline is just as this is, a headline.

 

[sjt01]

Are you telling me seriously that nobody in the Police noticed or cared about backing up the data, or even at Fujitsu? I don't believe it. Can't believe it. Don't want to believe that such crass ineptitude at many levels is even possible in this day and age.

This is what Wikipedia has to say on the Post Office affair

Horizon is a computer system used by part of the United Kingdom's postal service, Post Office Ltd. In 2013 the system was being used by at least 11,500 branches, and was processing some six million transactions every day.[1]

It has come under criticism since at least 2000 for errors in the system which, according to press reports, may have caused the loss of dozens of jobs, unwarranted prison sentences, bankruptcies, and one documented suicide.[2] In September 2020, the Post Office declared it would not oppose many postmasters' appeals against conviction,[3] and in December 2020 some convictions were quashed.

 

[Highland Mule]

I see SEPA are having some issues with IT too - seem to have been victim to a very nasty hack/ ransom event and are struggling to get everything back for almost a month now.

 

[Cowabunga]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they manage retrieve it somehow, systems very rarely now allow you to accidentally loose that amount of data without going through many steps to confirm it. I doubt very much it was a 'policeman' that did the deed, more likely to be a civilian employee or contractor. Like the title of the thread, the news headline is just as this is, a headline.

Wouldn't be surprised if it was 'organised crime'. I hope MI5 are looking into the possibility. No point having the police investigate themselves.