Police under fire in new database row
Just a day after the Information Commissioner raided a firm for possessing a covert database of construction workers’ personal information, it emerged that the police force is keeping a potentially illegal database listing the details of political activists and journalists.
In a Guardian newspaper investigation, the Metropolitan Police force, which is said to have pioneered surveillance techniques at demonstrations, was accused of storing details including names, photographs, political associations and video footage of protesters and reporters.
The information is stored on CrimInt, a centralised database used by all police to catalogue criminal intelligence, the report said. The information was obtained by the paper via Freedom of Information requests, court testimony, an interview with a senior Met oficer and police surveillance footage.
