Serving police officer Anna Wong guilty of data crime

By Paul Thornton

A POLICEWOMAN is facing a fine of up to £5,000 after she illegally accessed people’s data using a police computer.

Anna Wong, 26, was suspended by Lothian and Borders Police after they caught her using intelligence databases to look-up people she knew.

SHAMED: Anna Wong

Wong – originally from Hong Kong – used the Scottish Intelligence Database and the Lothian and Borders Operational Support System to obtain personal details of a number of Chinese people living in Scotland.

The officer was suspended after it emerged Wong was accessing the details at the capital’s St Leonards Police Station between March 2006 and June 2007.

Charged

Wong was charged with 54 breaches of the Data Protection Act and later admitted 28 of the charges at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

She insists she did not pass the information on to anyone else but could face a maximum £5,000 fine.

Fiscal depute Beverley Adam said Wong had been at level nine on the scale of access privileges within the force – the lowest rating with access to the information – when she used the databases.

Her solicitor, David O’Hagan, said Wong had begun tapping into the database to look-up outstanding cases against two people she knew. However, Mr O’Hagan said, because of the difficulties in recording Chinese names on the computers, Wong simply entered “Chinese” as a search term and began accessing others in the Chinese community to investigate possible links.