As many as 70% of Metropolitan Police officers have not completed the force's mandatory data protection training, an oversight official has told the London Assembly.
Kenny Bowie, director of strategy and MPS oversight at the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime, acknowledged at a police and crime committee hearing that completion rates were "not particularly good" and needed to improve. He said earlier figures from the Information Commissioner's Office put Met completion rates at between 30% and 40%.
Last month the ICO identified "serious and ongoing shortcomings" in the force's data protection training, describing completion levels as low. It issued an enforcement notice requiring specific improvements within three months, and further measures within twelve months to strengthen how the Met handles data.
The regulator's action followed two incidents. In one, an officer sent unredacted documents to a man accused of stalking, exposing the victim's address and phone number. In the other, an officer sent a mass email that disclosed the names and contact details of 18 people connected to the Westminster 'honeytrap' scandal. In that case, neither the officer nor their supervisor had completed the required training for around four years.
At the committee hearing, senior officials said compliance had to be achieved urgently, but declined to commit to a deadline. Bowie said the approach rested on "personal responsibility, a supervisory responsibility, and a sort of technological layer on top of that".
Assembly member Benali Hamdache called the position "unacceptable", pointing out that it comes after the Met apologised for inadvertently exposing around 140 email addresses belonging to people who had reported sexual abuse by the late Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed.
"This is unacceptable and falls woefully short of the standards the public has every right to expect from its officers," he said.
A Met spokesperson said the force takes "all information breaches extremely seriously when they occur", and said it had "taken significant steps" to ensure officers are properly trained and safeguards are in place, including better monitoring of compliance and additional protections around data handling.
