A security flaw on the Shanghai police website led to the identities and personal data of informants and complainants being made public, SCMP reports.
The leaked files included informants' names, home addresses, phone numbers and letters they sent to the police chief's email address. The bulk of the files - dating from August 2013 to last Sunday - included photographic proof of alleged wrongdoing, some implicating police officers, according to the report.
Although the cause of the leak in unclear, the data could be accessed publicly through the server that hosts the the Shanghai Public Security Bureau's website from Friday afternoon at the latest until Sunday afternoon.
One of the complainants, an unnamed man from the Minhang district, expressed his shock surrounding the incident. "How could they do this to us?" he said. "I hope the authorities can treat our reports more seriously by ensuring the informants are protected from such exposure."
The man never actually received a response to his complaint, which he sent via the police department's email complaint system, which exists to let citizens to air their grievances and report crimes directly.
The authorities encourage those using the system to provide their personal information to ensure they are dealt in a "timely manner", promising that all data would be protected.
A woman who accused officers of assaulting her family members spoke of her disappointment in the security breach.
"To disclose our information is like telling those police officers that I'm the whistleblower," she said. "I did my job, but apparently the police didn't do theirs."
[Image via Flickr]
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