The promise of Crime Stoppers is anonymity. A CBC investigation found that promise broken at enormous scale. More than 1.5 million tips submitted to Canadian Crime Stoppers programs over 25 years are circulating online, MobileSyrup reports, citing CBC.
The data came from P3 Global Intel, the company Crime Stoppers contracts to run its tip database. A hacktivist group stole it in March, and Distributed Denial of Secrets, a U.S. non-profit, later made it available to researchers and journalists.
What’s in it:
- More than 850,000 tips with personal information, including addresses and phone numbers for tipsters, the people they named, staff and police.
- More than 4,300 tips with a tipster’s full name, even though Crime Stoppers tells people not to give one.
- Tens of thousands of email addresses and licence plates, and hundreds of banking details tied to cash rewards.
- Tips connected to high-profile cases, including the Barry and Honey Sherman murders.
CBC found that staff had flagged hundreds of cases where a tipster’s identity was compromised, but the information was left unredacted. The reporting didn’t include a response from Crime Stoppers or P3.
Why it matters: People who tipped police about violent crime may now be identifiable by the people they reported. If you’ve ever submitted a tip, assume the details could be out there. Watch for doxxing or contact from strangers, and talk to police if you feel at risk. More broadly, it’s another case of a sensitive public-safety system run by a private vendor without enough oversight.
