South Yorkshire police loses body worn camera footage in serious data breach
South Yorkshire Police has referred itself to the Information Commissioner's Office
PA
South Yorkshire Police has referred itself to the Information Commissioner's Office after stored footage from body worn cameras went missing.
The force says it’s urgently trying to recover the footage recorded by officers between July 2020 and May 2023.
Approximately 69 cases have been identified as potentially affected by the loss of data and the force says it’s working closely with the victims and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Assistant Chief Constable Rick Alton said: “I am deeply sorry this has occurred and after we became aware of the loss in data, we notified the Information Commissioner's Office and began work to attempt to recover it.
Assistant Chief Constable Rick Alton said the force was 'deeply sorry'
PA
“We’ve had a team of people working around the clock to manually check each case currently within the criminal justice system.
“We’ve brought in digital forensics specialists to explore how this data loss occurred and to establish if the data can be recovered.
"We will provide an update concerning this when further work has been undertaken.
"Whilst we remain hopeful, there are no guarantees, so it’s important the victims and the wider public are informed.”
The data includes footage filmed by officers as they attend an incident or engage with the public and in some cases this can be used in evidence in both criminal and civil proceedings.
Earlier this month, the Police Service of Northern Ireland was hit by a huge data breach, when the details of all its serving members was published following an error by a junior member of staff.
Last week more than 1200 people, including victims of crime and witnesses, had their data breached Norfolk and Suffolk police forces.
Norfolk and Suffolk constabularies said “a technical issue led to the data being included within files” responding to Freedom of Information requests.