WINNIPEG -- The City of Brandon announced on Tuesday, Oct. 27 that information from the police’s security camera database was accidentally made publicly available.

Around 4:40 p.m. on Oct. 21, the city learned a private, internal Brandon Police Service (BPS) database, which contained information related to security cameras around the city, was accidentally made available on the internet through a mapping interface service.

Within 15 minutes of city staff learning of this privacy breach, they were able to remove online access to the dataset.

The city noted police keep a database of business and private residence security cameras in order to help with investigations, adding the information is “kept in strict confidence” and was never meant to be made available to the public.

Some of the data in this database includes street addresses, the physical locations of the security cameras, the vantage point of the security cameras, the business’ names, and contact information. Brandon noted that not all records in the database contained all of the listed information.

The city and police can’t have access to any private camera images or video feeds without the owners giving them access.

Following an investigation, the city determined the data had been publicly available for five days, from the afternoon of Oct. 16 to Oct. 21.

Its internal review determined the only person who accessed the map information was the person who brought it to the city’s attention.

Brandon has reported the information to the Manitoba Ombudsman, and is notifying everyone impacted by this breach.