British police apologized after posting the name and address of a sexual assault victim on their website.
Suffolk Police say they have launched an investigation into how the victim’s name, address, date of birth and details of allegedly hundreds of alleged crimes were released.
It is currently not clear since the information was made available on the police website.
A representative of the charity Suffolk Rape Crisis warns that victims of sexual assault can be “traumatically traumatized” and at risk of further intimidation if their personal information is made public. Did.
Support groups like Suffolk Rape Crisis are concerned that fewer survivors of sexual assault report their crimes to authorities, and that data breaches undermine victims’ confidence in the reliability of the police. .
Victims of sexual assault expect a right to anonymity for life, but the police’s seemingly careless actions on this occasion seem to have destroyed that.
It is unclear how the sensitive data was posted to the Suffolk Police website and is under investigation.
“Suffolk Police have become aware that some personal information that should not have been uploaded is accessible through police websites. This issue was quickly resolved and the information is no longer accessible. An investigation into the cause is underway. It happened,” a Suffolk Police spokesman said. “The Information Commissioner’s office has been informed of this incident. We take our obligations under data protection law very seriously.”
Suffolk Police and Crime Commissioner Tim Passmore issued an “unconditional apology” for the breach of privacy. “We need to know how this error came about and make sure measures are in place to prevent it from happening again.”
The UK’s data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), has confirmed that it is investigating the incident.
Suffolk rape crisis Tweet We urged women who felt traumatized or overwhelmed by data breaches to take care of their health and provided emotional support when needed.
