Priti Patel says experts working ‘flat out’ to fix issues caused by wiping of 400,000 police records
Written by News on 18/01/2021
The home secretary has said experts are working “flat out” to fix the problems caused by the accidental deletion of hundreds of thousands of police records.
A “major technical operation” was under way to correct the issues with the Police National Computer (PNC), Priti Patel said.
Human error and defective code has seen a significant number of fingerprint, DNA and arrest history records lost.
At first, it was thought that some 150,000 records were affected, but the total is now believed to be around 400,000.
The Home Office has said data engineers are developing and testing new code to restore the data, with ministers being kept regularly updated.
It added that a “fast time review” identified the problem and corrected it “so it cannot happen again”.
Labour has called for the home secretary to face MPs on the matter, but Ms Patel has so far declined to do so.
Instead, policing minister Kit Malthouse will update the Commons later on Monday.
Speaking about the row on Monday, the home secretary told the Press Association: “It is our priority always to keep the public safe.
“We are working with our policing partners, our operational partners and we have been every day since this technical coding error has been identified.
“Everyone is working flat out on this.
“We want to reconcile the data, we want to correct what has happened but that is a major, major technical operation right now and everybody is working flat out on this.
“The policing minister will be providing an update later on today on this.”
Labour’s shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said it was “shameful” and “embarrassing” that Ms Patel was not facing MPs herself.
“It’s an abject failure of leadership not to grip a crisis that has seen 400,000 records deleted and criminals set to walk free,” he said.
Some 213,000 offence records were wiped from the Police National Computer, along with 175,000 arrest records and 15,000 person records.
It is believed some of these records overlap and apply to the same crime or individual.
A total of 26,000 DNA records relating to 21,710 people have also potentially been deleted, as well as 30,000 fingerprint records and 600 subject records.
These figures are understood to be a “best estimate” as authorities are still trying to establish the full scale of the data wipe.
(c) Sky News 2021: Priti Patel says experts working ‘flat out’ to fix issues caused by wiping of 400,000 police records
