UK Home Secretary Pressured After 150,000 Arrest Records Deleted From Police National Computer

UK Home Secretary Pressured After 150,000 Arrest Records Deleted From Police National Computer
Britain's Home Secretary Priti Patel arrives for a cabinet meeting at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London on Sept. 22, 2020. Leon Neal/Pool via Reuters
Mary Clark
Updated:

Britain’s Home Secretary has come under fire after 150,000 arrest records were accidentally deleted from the database that shares mission-critical information between police and criminal justice services across the country.

The files were wiped from the Police National Computer (PNC) last week due to an error, rather than a deliberate cyber hack, in a mass erasure of biometric data such as DNA and fingerprints, the Times of London reported on Friday.