Vodafone claim it was a human error that made the mistake
Vodafone made a big mistake when they accidentally sent phone data of more than 1,700 people to the police when it only required information of one person.
The information was requested under Operation Eleveden, Scotland Yard’s inquiry into alleged payments to public officials in return for information by journalists.
The detectives had asked the telecoms company for details of calls made by a journalist at News International, now known as News UK.
But the news brings the question – is our data ever safe?
Vodafone has apologised to News UK for the what they called a ‘human error’ and accepted the date was ‘wrongly disclosed’, according to Sky sources.
News UK said Vodafone recognised the mobile phone records of journalists and lawyers were particularly sensitive and it made clear to Vodafone that it viewed this as a very serious issue, the sources added.
A spokesman for the mobile phone operator told the BBC: “Unfortunately, there was a human error during the processing of this information – which has drawn manually from a legacy system – as a consequence of which the Met Police were supplied with a corrupted dataset containing a significantly higher volume of metadata than has been the focus of the warrant received by Vodafone.
“The metadata in question relates to call logs and other information, such as pricing data, not the content or location of any communications.”
Mike Darcey, chief executive of News UK, said in an internal message to staff: “A senior Vodafone executive has personally apologised to me for what he insists was ‘human error’. Vodafone accepts that the data was ‘wrongly disclosed’ and that our trust and confidence in them have been badly damaged.
“They also recognise that the mobile phone records of journalists – and lawyers – contain privileged information and we have made clear to them that we regard this as a very serious issue. I am personally appalled that this could happen and have relayed this in the strongest terms when speaking with Vodafone.”
The spokesman from Vodafone explained that they had sought opinion of a leading human rights QC and wrote to the Met to express ‘grave concern’ that the police continued to retain the data released to them in error and ‘made it clear to them that nay assumption that meaningful conclusion could be drawn from any aspect of the corrupted dataset was highly questionable.