Scotland's Police Lose Data Because of Programmer's Error

Anne Thwacks writes Assistant Chief Constable Wayne Mawson told the [Scottish Police Authority] committee that a total of 20,086 records had been lost because a computer programmer pressed the wrong button between May and July last year. He added: "....they had been properly put on the system by the officers as a result of stopping and searching people, but we lost the outcome of it as a computer programming error. We have been working really hard to recover that data. I have personally overseen the sending out of several thousand emails to officers and follow-up audits. We have been working hard with HMICS to oversee everything that we do, to make sure it is done properly and I am pleased to say that the vast majority of that data, those results, are now back on the system."

Comments

What if?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if there was people powerful enough (politicians, ...) to clean their record? No, no, cannot be, complot theory. They surely don't have any functional backup. I am a believer my overlord.

Re:What if?

[u38cg]

Stop and search just doesn't happen to rich people. Stop, maybe, but certainly not search.

Re:What if?

[Anonymous Coward]

This has very little to do with people's police records becoming clean - it's about the police misleading the public (and our politicans) about the number of stop-and-searches being carried out ("they had been properly put on the system by the officers as a result of stopping and searching people, but we lost the outcome of it as a computer programming error"). Scotland - uniquely in the UK - continues to carry out "consensual searches" (searches with the "consent" of the victim) even when the person being searched is too young to give informed consent. The police claimed the number of searches was tiny (in comparison with previous years) but it turns out the police "lost" most of their records. Oops. How they've been forced to come clean. In follows on from public disquiet over the police quietly arming themselves for routine patrols in crime hotspots like small-town Inverness. Right now 1 in 5 Scots distrust the new improved, centralised police service.

Re:What if?

[freak0fnature]

Reminds me of lost IRS emails...

Re:What if?

[plopez]

Because they can afford *good* lawyers.

Convenient error, perchance?

[Simon Brooke]

Speaking as someone who's been following this story as it developed, it seems to me that the data that has been 'lost' is data the high heid yins of Scotland's police were very eager to lose. They'd been acting beyond their remit - and probably beyond the law - and they knew it.

So I suspect someone with scrambled egg on their hat took that programmer into a quiet room and said 'you will make an unfortunate error this afternoon, or we'll be sending the boys round'. I'm pretty sure the government suspect the same.

Heads will, I suspect, roll - and I don't think they will be the heads of programmers.

Re:Convenient error, perchance?

[ColdGrits]

heid yins

Is that like a muckety muck?

Slightly more seriously, how is "heid" pronounced (besides with a Scottish accent)? Like "hide"? "Heed"? I'm assuming "yin" is pronounced the same as it would be in "yin-yang"?

In any case, my thanks for the new bit of slang....

Heid is pronounced "heed"
Yin, well, "Yin"

Head yin - Big Boss, The Head of the Outfit. The Head One.

Software testing ... what a novel concept

[Bomarc]

At least this article admits to a level of "programmer error". However --- like most "computer error" news articles, this one misses a key point: This (like many others) is actually management error. Management failed to oversee programmers. Management failed implement test. Management failed.
I just wonder how much longer before software testing will get the respect it deserves.

Re:Software testing ... what a novel concept

[TuringTest]

Software testing doesn't protect against a user pressing the wrong button, which then works as expected. I agree it's a management error, but the failure in such cases is a lack of user testing.

Systems should be designed to follow the interactions that are more likely to be made by users, not the other way around - forcing users to follow the path that a developer thought would make sense. Unfortunately, user-centered design is still a foreign concept to a good chunk of developer houses.

Pressing the wrong button ?

[BlueTrin]

It is amazing that in this day and age, a system containing police records allow certain users to delete data in an irrevocable way whether it is a button press or anything else.

'Programmer' working with live data?

[hazeii]

Very convenient, and of course we all know programmers develop their code on the only copy of a live database (of which there are no backups)...

Re:'Programmer' working with live data?

[sound vision]

Yeah, someone working in the police force there is either very incompetent or very shady. I think the latter is more likely. It's not 1990, this sort of data will be backed up unless someone specifically decides not to.

Re:'Programmer' working with live data?

[Kjella]

Very convenient, and of course we all know programmers develop their code on the only copy of a live database (of which there are no backups)...

I know of at least one project from my former life as a consultant where that happened, the production server was available and being set up to match development for the first release, then it kinda just rolled into production without anyone notifying IT so all the production monitoring, backups etc. was never turned on. They were not happy when they eventually found out many months and many, many manhours of production data later, but fortunately nothing bad happened in the mean time. Or another project I was on, where finance had kinda built their own system outside IT that they de facto used for reporting but wasn't supported in any way. If you haven't seen it happen, be grateful.

Re: Programmer error, really?

[BlueTrin]

Obligatory XKCD reference: xkcd.com/327/

Phrasing?

[GrandCow]

"Programmer error" != some idiot pressing the wrong button.

If you want powerful software, you get powerful results. You also get powerful fuck-ups. Don't blame the person who coded it, blame the idiot who clicked through 4 different "are you REALLY SURE you want to do this" warnings.

Re:Phrasing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you can blame the designer that designed a system where it's possible for a normal user of the system to bulk delete an entire swath of the database while working on a single record, and without having an audit trail record that allows point-in-time recovery from backups without any data loss.

Heads will roll?

[Bruce66423]

In your dreams. They've got plausible deniability. It would be good to come back in five years and watch the career paths of those involved, especially this 'programmer'.

Re:Heads will roll?

[JaredOfEuropa]

You would expect organisations like these to be held to a higher level accountability than us mere mortals, but sadly that is often not the case. Try tell an Internal Revenue inspector: "I am sorry but I have lost those records of my offshore savings account due to pressing a wrong button" and see what answer you get. Hell, as a kid I never got away with "the dog ate my homework". Yet what consequences will follow from losing hundreds of important police records during an investigation into police conduct?

If any one person, under orders, acting on their own initiative or simply making a mistake, is capable of irrevocably wiping important records like these, then there is something seriously wrong with your organisation. Someone is responsible for managing IT and keeping information/records at the police, start with them.

Sackings and investigation required.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, what kind of system can't recover from a backup? Why can't this system? What idiot allowed the situation to arise where backups can't be restored?

Re:Sackings and investigation required.

[Builder]

This can't be restored because the police do not want it restored. The are under investigation for abuse of stop and search powers, and racial profiling. Suddenly all of the reports that they have to file after each stop and search are gone. IT error my ass.

Re:Scotland Yard Not So New After All?

[Coisiche]

Actually, New Scotland Yard is the HQ of the Metropolitan Police in London and this disaster was only for Police Scotland.

Police Scotland is the recently formed amalgamation of the four or five police forces that Scotland had into a single force. The merger was to unify various systems, presumably so that something like this could affect the whole of Scotland rather than just one part.

Re:And those guys want easier access to private da

[aaaaaaargh!]

What's even more sad is that he has most definitely not "personally overseen the sending out of several thousand emails". At best, he has sent some memo around that said something like this: "Send out emails now! That's an order! Yours sincerely, your boss. P.S.: Fuck you!"

Re: Programmer error, really?

[Jamu]

They arrested Bobby Drop Tables?

Re:Computer programmer

[arth1]

I'm not sure. A typist generally won't hold down a button for several months as this person allegedly did.
A brainfuck programmer who needs to access a big chunk of memory, on the other hand...

So....

[Trailer Trash]

Is Lois Lerner working in Scotland now?