The loss of data at the Dallas Police Department now appears to be much larger than originally thought.
Initial reports stated that 22 terabytes of information had been lost. Fourteen of those were able to be recovered, but the department could not account for approximately eight terabytes. But, on Monday, the ongoing audit of the city’s computer database found that an additional fifteen terabytes are missing.
One terabyte can store approximately 250,000 photos and six million documents.
City spokeswoman Janella Newsome assured reporters that the loss is being taken seriously.
“The city continues to assess the impact of the compromise on its operations, whether data recovery specialists can recover data from the physical devices on which it had been stored or other systems, and whether any additional systems citywide have been affected,” Newsome said.
However, she also warned that this newest discovery might not be the last.
The data loss, which city prosecutors only learned of at the beginning of August, occurred in early April when a now terminated city IT employee was transferring files from an online cloud server to the city’s data center. The files, including photos, videos, audio recordings, and case notes, had been archived before July 2020 and had not been accessed in several months.
Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia has said that case files involving violent crimes were not affected. However, the loss of data has caused prosecutors to have delay cases and, in one instance, has allowed an accused murder to walk free on bail.
