Botched attempts to collect communications data during UK pedophile investigations led to the wrong people being implicated on multiple occasions in 2014, according to the latest report by a communications watchdog.
In the report, Interception of Communications Commissioner Sir Anthony May said that errors had resulted in five police searchers at the properties of innocent men and women, according to BBC News reports. Furthermore, May found that there were 17 serious errors committed by the authorities or communications service providers in all during the course of last year.
The mistakes were made during activities to collect the who, when, and where of communications data, but not the actual content itself, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Nine of the mistakes were due to human error while the others were attributed to technical errors.
Some of the instances had ‘very serious consquences’
State agencies were responsible for five of the mistakes, while service providers were to blame for 11 of them and one was attributed to an organization identified only as “other party.” None of the offending groups were mentioned by name in May’s report, according to the BBC.
In all cases where there were “very serious consequences,” he said those affected were made aware of the error. May said that, in most cases, those who were wrongly investigated were “incredibly understanding” about the whole thing. However, he noted that at least a few of them were pursuing legal action over the incidents.
In one case, an individual unconnected to a child sex investigation was arrested due to mistakes in the tracing of online activity, while in another, authorities attempted to trace the owner of an email account connected to a child sexual exploitation probe. However, they failed to notice an underscore in the email address, resulting in the wrong person’s home being searched.
“Any police action taken erroneously in such cases, such as the search of an individual’s house who is unconnected with the investigation or a delayed welfare check on an individual whose life is believed to be at risk, can have a devastating impact on the individuals concerned,” said May.
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