Vodafone sends 1,700 phone numbers to police 'accidentally'

Instead of sending the phone number of just one journalist, Vodafone accidentally forwarded 1,700 phone numbers of UK workers to the police.

15:03 26 November 2014

Vodafone has issued an apology after sending the phone numbers of 1,700 News UK workers to the police after they were asked only for details of one journalist. 

 

Reports confirm that the phone numbers were accidentally forwarded to a Scotland Yard officer who was currently on Operation Elveden tasked to investigate allegations of illegal payments to public officials by journalists. 

 

Vodafone has apologised to News UK for what the telecoms firm called a "human error" and accepted the data was "wrongly disclosed.”

 

Meanwhile, MET revealed: "An initial initial review revealed a volume of excess data, covering more than a thousand different numbers had been inadvertently sent by Vodafone.

 

"After a fuller examination of the data by Operation Elveden, the error was reported to the Interception of Communications Commissioner's Office and to Vodafone on 27 June."

 

The Met claimed it had agreed to use the material only "for a policing purpose, when in the interests of justice to do so and where people were already charged and facing criminal proceedings".