Privacy breach on Twitter: Bengaluru Police posts more than 40K phone numbers

Bengaluru police’s city control room has been publishing on Twitter the phone numbers of thousands of citizens reporting various crimes such as gambling on the streets, random quarrels and harassment of women.

Bengaluru City police has accidentally released phone numbers of all citizens who reported a crime via its emergency number 100. (AFP)

If you are a good Samaritan in Bengaluru, then you might just start receiving prank calls or rather unwanted calls.

Why? Bengaluru City police has accidentally published more than 40,000 phone numbers since April 2015 on Twitter of people who have contacted them via emergency number 100 to report various crimes such as gambling on the streets, random quarrels and harrasment of women.

According to a report, the phone numbers of citizens reaching the control room through Bengaluru police's new emergency mobile application, Suraksha, too, are being published under the Bengaluru Police's Twitter handle -- @BCPCR.

However, the handle had only 66 followers and nearly 30% of them other police stations in the city but the cops have closed the account for public view.

The report also claims that a senior police officer at Bengaluru police's Command Control was unapologetic for the breach of privacy and said that the tweets were generated automatically and meant to 'show' the number of calls received by the control room and the number of people using the new app.

The officer also said that there was no question of privacy here as the accused will come to know who reported the crime.

However, the report also quotes a Supreme Court lawyer saying that the violation was unpardonable.