Nearly all of the interviews concerned on-going cases of a violent or sexual nature
CPS fined £200k over theft of laptops |
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined the CPS
£200,000 for failing to keep recorded police interviews with victims and
witnesses secure. The fine came after laptops containing videos of police
interviews were stolen during a burglary in 2014 from a private film studio in
Manchester where they were being edited. According to the ICO, the interviews
were with 43 victims and witnesses. They involved 31 investigations, nearly all
of which were ongoing and of a violent or sexual nature. Some of the interviews
related to historical allegations against a high-profile individual.
The victims and witnesses could be seen talking openly in
the videos and referring to the names of the offenders, including the high-profile
individual. Fortunately, the names and addresses of the victims and witnesses
had already been edited out.
The police recovered the laptops eight days after the
burglary and it told the ICO that the data had not been accessed by
unauthorised third parties.
The ICO’s decision stated that the CPS, being a data
controller, had failed to keep the videos secure and that, "The
consequences of failing to keep that data safe should have been obvious to
them." The CPS had no guarantee that the DVDs, which were unencrypted,
would be stored securely or destroyed by the studio once work was completed and
in fact, it had not had a Data Protection Act compliant contract with the studio
in relation to the processing of the DVDs.
Head of Enforcement at the ICO, Stephen Eckersley said,
"Handling videos of police interviews containing highly sensitive personal
data is central to what the CPS does. The CPS was aware of the graphic and
distressing nature of the personal data contained in the videos, but was
complacent in protecting that information. The consequences of failing to keep
that data safe should have been obvious to them."
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