Engineers battling diligently to restore data on Police National Computer

Working with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and other policing partners, data engineers within the Home Office Digital, Data and Technology function continue to develop and test new code with the ultimate aim of restoring the data. Both the Home Secretary and the policing minister are being kept regularly updated on this process.

A fast-time review identified the problem and corrected it such that it cannot happen again.

The Home Secretary stated: “Home Office engineers continue to work to restore data lost as a result of human error during a routine housekeeping process. Public safety is the foremost priority of everyone within the Home Office, and I would like to thank the data engineers working to restore these records. I continue to be in regular contact with the team and, working with our policing partners, we will provide an update as soon as we can.”

Policing minister Kit Malthouse commented: “We continue to work closely with the police to rectify this issue and I want to thank Home Office staff and our policing partners for their ongoing efforts. The affected records apply to cases where individuals were arrested and then released with no further action, and we’re working to recover the affected records as a priority. While we do so, the Police National Computer is functioning and the police are taking steps to mitigate any impact of this episode.”