Crime Stoppers Pauses Tip Line After Vendor Breach Exposes 1.5 Million Anonymous Reports

Toronto Crime Stoppers has paused its operations after a Canadian news report found that more than 1.5 million tips from Crime Stoppers chapters across Canada were exposed in a data breach. The program has long told witnesses they can report crimes anonymously. The CBC reported that about half of the leaked tips it studied, some dating back 25 years, contained personal information. Reporters were able to reach more than a dozen tipsters by reviewing the hacked data, which was made available to them in March by Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets).

The national association and individual chapters had confirmed the breach in the days after the hack, but offered no detail about what was exposed. They blamed the lack of information on their vendor, Navigate360, and its subsidiary, P3 Global Intel. Late on Wednesday, the Toronto chapter broke ranks with the national association. It published a timeline of what it knew and when, and announced it would pause operations.

Toronto Crime Stoppers said it has told Navigate360 to stop taking tips and told Canada's National Anonymous Call Centre to stop processing tips meant for it. Its chair, Sean Sportun, said the promise of anonymity had been broken for some people and apologised. The group is asking the public not to send tips by phone, online or through the app while it looks for a truly anonymous way to receive them.