The United Kingdom says that „human error“ has wiped out thousands of police computer records

The British Police Secretary said that a „human error“ has resulted in the wiping of hundreds of thousands of DNA records and other data of criminal suspects from the National Police computer.

Britain’s police secretary said on Monday that the „human error“ had resulted in hundreds of thousands of DNA records and other data on criminal suspects being wiped off the National Police computer.

Kate Malthouse told lawmakers in the House of Commons that the accident occurred during the „normal housekeeping process“ on the computer that has 13 million records. He said that about 400,000 records were erased, including 213,000 records of wrongdoing and 170,000 arrest records.

Malthouse said: „It is clear that this situation is very dangerous,“ adding, „We will know the full extent of the impact of this issue during the next few days.“

Labor lawmaker Yvette Cooper said it was „very difficult to understand how 400,000 records could be deleted from such an important system without a proper back-up system.“

Malthouse said officials were trying to recover the data but he could not guarantee that the criminal investigation would not be damaged by the error. He said the government is working „to make sure that any operational impact is avoided or mitigated.“