Japanese police leak crime records on internet

Apologising for the error on Monday, Kyoto police said they were having some difficulty deleting the data from the internet.

Japan's National Police Agency said the records, which included names, addresses and other information on at least 11 people, contain details of court warrants and similar documents.

Police, who said they have contacted the people concerned to apologise personally, claimed this is the first incident of its type in Japan.

Preliminary investigations suggest that the incident, which involved data from an officer's private PC in use at a police box, was a one-off, although it remains unclear how the data made its way on to the internet.