Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner - 2016
Description:
A police force was conducting a fraud investigation. They made
an application for subscriber information based on a telephone
number incorrectly recorded in a victim’s witness statement.
The subscriber was invited into a police station for interview.
As a result of the interview, the authority realised an error had
been made.
Consequence:
An innocent person was interviewed by the police.
Error Investigation 11
Error by:
Public Authority
Human or
Technical:
Human
Cause:
Telephone number incorrectly transposed.
Data Acquired:
Subscriber information relating to a mobile telephone number.
Description:
A police force was trying to locate a missing person using their
mobile number, provided to police by a family member. The
number was incorrectly typed into the force’s records system.
As a result, the application to find calls made by the missing
person was based on the wrong number. Four numbers were
called by this incorrect number. When the police visited the
addresses associated with three of these numbers, and found
no link to their investigation, they realised a mistake had been
made.
Consequence:
The police visited three premises unconnected to their search
then interviewed the people at these premises. This delayed
the search for the missing person, who was eventually found
safe and well.
Error Investigation 12
Error by:
Public Authority
Human or
Technical:
Human
Cause:
Transposition error when copying an IP address from one
system to another.
72
@iocco_oversight