Data gaffe sees two people wrongly accused

Two members of the public were arrested by police and wrongly accused of crimes because officials wrote down the wrong numbers.

Sir Paul Kennedy, the Interception of Communications Commissioner, said two forces were given the wrong information by a communications service provider (CSP) which led to two people being wrongly detained and accused of crimes last year.

The firm was also slow to report the errors and initially gave unsatisfactory explanations as to how they occurred, or what was being done to prevent it happening again, Sir Paul said.

A total of 895 communications data errors were reported last year, with a fifth of these made by CSP.

Prime Minister David Cameron told MPs “the causes of these breaches and errors will need to be addressed”.