At least seven Crime Stoppers chapters have announced they are suspending programs a day after CBC revealed the extent of a massive data leak.
Toronto Crime Stoppers, which our analysis found had the largest number of compromised tips, was the first to announce it would pause its program, effective immediately, in a statement sent late Wednesday evening.
In the statement, the organization advised the public not to send tips by phone, online or through its app “until we have a safer way to protect you.”
The organization also said that despite its legal counsel’s multiple requests over months, Navigate360 — the U.S.-based third party that manages all of Crime Stoppers’ anonymous tips internationally through its software platform P3 — did not provide the text of the stolen tips, so it cannot see them.
The response also included a detailed timeline stating that Navigate360 initially said the leak did not include any Canadian data. It then said some Canadian data had been stolen but not Toronto’s, before finally confirming that about three years’ worth of Toronto data actually was affected.
Finally in July, Navigate360 provided the unique IDs of more than 176,000 Toronto tips and said a portion of them “potentially” contained personal information.
CBC’s exclusive investigation published Wednesday, which analyzed a copy of the leaked data obtained online, found that more than 179,000 tips submitted to Toronto Crime Stoppers over the past 25 years had been affected — with a total of 1.5 million Canadian tips identified as part of the leak.
It was the first time precise figures were made public showing the severity of the information exposed, as well as how many Canadian tipsters were compromised.
Up until the investigation was published, the Canadian Crime Stoppers Association (CCSA) and individual chapters had not spoken out about the extent of the breach, only saying they awaited a detailed report from Navigate360.
More than 1.5 million Canadian Crime Stoppers tips leaked, CBC exclusive finds
CBC reached out to more than 30 Crime Stoppers chapters Thursday to inquire about whether they would follow Toronto’s lead and also pause their participation in light of the information revealed in our investigation.
In contrast, Crime Stoppers in New Brunswick will continue, said Mark J. LeBelle, director of digital media services.
He told CBC News its cybersecurity team reset passwords, mandated two-factor authentication across the board, and will train local tip operators.
Over a million Canadian tips leaked from Crime Stoppers database
“Although this breach is concerning and certainly a stain on our program … we have been assured that the software is safer and more secure than it was prior to the breach,” he said in an emailed statement.
So far, police units in Toronto, Durham, York Region, Halton, Windsor, Guelph and Wellington County and Hamilton — all in Ontario — told CBC News they have suspended their partnerships with local Crime Stoppers chapters and are asking the public to contact them directly.
CBC’s analysis also revealed that more than half of all Canadian tips included personally identifiable information. We could not determine in every instance whether the information belonged to a tipster, a victim or those accused of a crime.
However, we found that in over 4,300 reports, tipsters introduced themselves with a full name, although Crime Stoppers explicitly tells the public to avoid including identifying details. Still, this represented a fraction of reports, at less than one per cent of all entries over 25 years. CBC wasn’t able to verify whether all names were legitimate.
Despite hundreds of those tips containing clear staff warnings that a tipster had “self-identified” or had been “exposed,” the information still appeared in the database unredacted.
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Toronto Crime Stoppers’ statement reiterated that the program aims to keep tips anonymous.
“We never ask for your name, and we don’t want it,” it said. “But people sometimes include details to explain what they saw. Before a tip goes to investigators, our practice is to remove those details. It has come to light that some of those original tips containing potentially identifying information were stolen from P3.”
Toronto police said the news “raises serious concerns regarding the protection of confidential information provided through the Crime Stoppers program.”
