South Yorkshire Police reprimanded for deleting 96,000 pieces of body-worn footage over three-year period
South Yorkshire Police has failed to provide a “definitive explanation” for deleting more than 96,000 pieces of body-worn video footage over a three-year period, relating to 126 criminal cases.
It comes as the force is reprimanded by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) following their investigation into the deletion into a total of 96,174 pieces of (body-worn video) BWV footage.
The lost footage was captured during a time period running between July 2020 and May 2023, and followed the discovery of flaws in the force’s IT back-up policies which were identified in 2019. The full extent of the problem was not passed to senior management at South Yorkshire Police (SYP), however.
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An investigation report published by the ICO today (Monday, August 18, 2025) states that SYP has “not been able to provide a definitive explanation as to how the deletion occurred, however, SYP has explained that it believes the data (BWV footage) was deleted from the storage grid in error.”
The ICO report states that the 96,174 lost pieces of BWV footage relate to 126 criminal cases, of which “only three cases were impacted by the loss.”
Sally Anne Poole, Head of Investigations at the ICO, said: “This incident highlights the importance of having detailed policies and procedures in place to mitigate against the loss of evidence.
“People rightly have high expectations that our police forces and services, which protect us, also protect the personal information they hold.
“There is a lot to be learned from this incident and I encourage police forces and services and other organisation using this type of technology to check and make improvements where they find potential flaws”.
The ICO says it has “reprimanded” SYP for their conduct in three areas related to the loss, namely:
- delaying the formulation of IT backup policies and not escalating to senior management when flaws were discovered in 2019;
- poor record keeping, meaning it could not confirm how many pieces of footage were permanently lost; and
- not identifying the security risk in relation to transferring of personal data between IT systems.
Detailing the system in place at the time of the loss, the ICO report says officers’ BWV footage was uploaded and stored to a central hub which could be accessed and managed, along with all of SYP’s digital evidence, via a secure system, at the end of each shift.”
The report continues: “In August 2023 SYP identified that its BWV file storage was very low and further investigation found that 96,174 pieces of original footage had been deleted from its system.
“The following month it was found the deletion had taken place on July 26, 2023 and included the loss of data relating to 126 criminal cases, only three of the cases were impacted by the loss.
“Of those three cases, SYP states one may have progressed to the first court hearing if BWV had been available. However, as there was no additional independent evidence to prove the offence, progression to prosecution stage was already uncertain.
“Prior to the deletion, 95,033 pieces of BWV footage had been copied to a new system that SYP was implementing but, due to poor record keeping, SYP remain unable to confirm the exact number of files deleted without copies made.”
The ICO says its role is one of both “enforcer and educator” and has thus issued the following recommendations:
- Ensure there is an adequate storage backup solution and process to restore lost BWV footage.
- Continue to shadow third parties when accessing SYP IT systems.
- Define third party roles and responsibilities when processing personal information held on SYP IT systems.
- Complete a risk assessment to determine security implications and control requirements prior to permitting third party access to SYP IT systems.
- Ensure all records are marked in a clear, identifiable way.
South Yorkshire Police referred itself to the ICO after the BWV loss was discovered.
Speaking following the publication of the ICO’s investigation report, Deputy Chief Constable Sarah Poolman said: “We do not underestimate the damage any loss of data can do to our communities’ trust and confidence in us.
“Whilst the Information Commissioner’s Office has welcomed the steps taken by us in the immediate aftermath, such as trying to retrieve the footage and informing those affected, we are sorry that any victim of crime faced this challenge whilst going through the criminal justice system.
“We did, of course, work closely with the Crown Prosecution Service to minimise the impact on criminal proceedings and judicial outcomes and, whilst even one is too many, it is believed only three cases were potentially detrimentally affected by the loss of body worn video footage.
“We have already put processes in place to safeguard our data. Of the seven recommendations made by the ICO, all have been implemented.”
The ICO is the independent regulatory office for legislation including the Data Protection Act 2018; the General Data Protection Regulation and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. It is a non-departmental public body which reports directly to Parliament.