Typos Lead To Wrongful Pedophilia Arrests Of More Than 20 Innocent People

According to the group that oversees the use of surveillance technology in the United Kingdom, a number of people have been mistakenly arrested for pedophilia because of typographical errors. In its annual report, the Interception of Communications Commissioner's Office said more than 20 arrests have been made in which an innocent person was mistaken for a pedophile because of a mis-typed IP address, Sky News reported.

IOCCO commissioner Sir Stanley Burton outlined the errors and their consequences in the report, talking about the harm innocent people have suffered because of these incidents.

“The impact of these errors has, in some cases, been enormous. People have been arrested for crimes relating to child sexual exploitation. Their children have been taken into care, and they have had to tell their employers. On confirmation of the error, all the power of the state, which comes into force to protect children, needs to be turned around and switched off. I have a great deal of admiration for Nigel Lang, who was arrested in error in these circumstances, for having had the courage to highlight this issue in the media.”

Nigel Lang was arrested in 2011 for pedophilia, which led to him being unable to see or support his son while the investigation took place. He was found to be completely innocent and gave an interview to Buzzfeed in March.

“People who knew me well, my best friends, they knew I didn’t do it. They knew what type of guy I am,” Lang told Buzzfeed. “But people who only knew me a bit, didn’t know me that well, they became funny. ‘No smoke without fire.’ I was afraid to take our son to nursery; I became a recluse.”

The IOCCO report mentions several cases of police searches occurring at the wrong locations due to these IP address typos. Internet protocol addresses can be used to find out where, physically, someone accessed online data, such as pedophilic material. The problem, as the Sky News report outlines, is that IP addresses are not static between users and tracking mechanisms have a large risk of error. A single mis-typed digit could lead to someone’s life being disrupted over a crime they did not commit, as the Lang case illustrated.

Stanley’s report said it remains likely that even more people will suffer “a catastrophic event” like Lang did in the future using current surveillance measures.