Confidential Police Complaints Records Exposed

March 29th, 2006: Hong Kong’s Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC) has publicly apologised after an electronic records leak exposed thousands of confidential records online.

The leak consisted of highly confidential records of 20,000 people who complained about the police dating back to 1996. The records included names, addresses and identity card numbers.

The leak has been blamed on a computer contractor who was hired in 2003 to digitise the complaint records. During this process he would upload the data to an internet server so he could work on it at home. The files were not encrypted or pass-worded when uploaded, allowing anyone to access them.

"The IPCC is greatly concerned over the leak of the personal data on the Internet," says council chairman Ronny Wong. "Undoubtedly, this incident has hurt the entire society and the integrity of the IPCC"

The council says it has taken steps to ensure that damage from the information breach is minimised, these include a plea to the public to not download the personal data. It has offered a “sincere and unreserved apology to the public and to those were affected."

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