The Metropolitan Police has issued an apology following a data breach that inadvertently shared the personal information of individuals involved in an investigation into allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed. The breach occurred when the force copied all subscribers of a monthly update into an email.
Joanna Brittan, who reported allegations of sexual abuse in 2017, described the incident as "shocking" and "deeply abusive." She stated that she had been promised by the Met that lessons had been learned after a previous data breach in which sensitive information from her police interview was mistakenly sent to two individuals in Australia. "It's unbelievable," Brittan told the BBC.
Dame Jasvinder Sanghera, an advocate for survivors of alleged abuse by Al Fayed, shared that many survivors feel "violated by the police" and that the apology received was "insipid" and "not good enough." The alleged offending took place within the Metropolitan Police's jurisdiction, leading to the transfer of the initial report from Devon and Cornwall Police.
One allegation concerns sexual abuse by Ahmed Obaidly, a former United Arab Emirates diplomat and associate of Al Fayed, which Brittan reported after working for a company linked to the UAE royal family in the early 1990s. Obaidly died in 2015. The Metropolitan Police stated that criminal allegations concerning Mohamed Al Fayed were made in 2024 and are now part of an ongoing investigation, Operation Cornpoppy.
This latest incident follows recent enforcement action by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) against the Metropolitan Police for two unrelated data breaches. In August, the ICO issued the force with a reprimand and enforcement notice, citing "serious and ongoing shortcomings" in data protection training, policies, procedures, and assurance arrangements for handling sensitive personal data. One of these breaches involved an officer disclosing a stalking victim's contact details to their alleged stalker.