"Details have emerged of a troubling case in which a basic engineering mistake wrecked a digital evidence investigation and led to wrongful accusations. An open judgment [PDF] published by the UK's Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which is responsible for investigating claims of British authorities illegally abusing their powers during the course of an investigation, detailed the impact on three people wrongly accused of child sex offences."
"An important detail is that UK police forces have access to a tool that allows them to monitor IP addresses in their jurisdiction that are known to be sharing IIOC. This tool alerted the force to IIOC sharing on a given IP address between May 10 and 15, 2016, and after looking into it further, the force discovered the relevant ISP was BT."
"BT complied, providing the police with the details of the resident who lived at the property to which the IP address resolved. That resident was AFG. SPR also resided at the same address, and FYC was his girlfriend who visited occasionally. The police then secured a warrant to search the premises on June 9, 2016, which was not executed until August 4 of the same year. Meanwhile, police were making additional inquiries regarding other IP addresses sharing IIOC, which all resolved to AFG's property."
Three residents — AFG, SPR, and FYC — were investigated by Dyfed-Powys Police after an IP address linked to their property was flagged for sharing indecent images of children between May 10 and 15, 2016. Police obtained subscriber details from BT under RIPA and later secured a warrant, executing a search on August 4, 2016. Multiple IP addresses all resolved to the same property. The investigation lasted until late January 2017. A subsequent finding identified a crossed wire in the street telecoms cabinet as the cause of the misattributed traffic, and the three were cleared of wrongdoing.
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