This file points to individual domestic homes as likely firearm storage locations, including postcodes, phone numbers, email addresses and IP addresses.
“We are working closely with the South West Regional Cyber Crime Unit, who are leading the criminal investigation, to support the organisation and manage any risk,” the agency said.
The map was leaked online via an animal rights activist’s blog, where the stolen reformatted Guntrader database was explicitly advertised as being importable into Google Earth. Readers of the blog were encouraged to “contact as many [owners] as you can in your area and ask them if they are involved in shooting animals.” The leak potentially exposes the gun owners identified to harassment by multiple people who could contact gun owners to make inquiries.
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Names and addresses can also be used to target home owners to offer them products and services. It could also expose them to threats my any rivals they may have for different types of reasons. Rivals who have access to the residence of a gun owner is likely to attend the address with a gun themselves, raising the risk of bloodshed to the multiple gun owners whose names and addressed were published online.
Some law firms have already used the data leak to tout for business, though the Guntrader database break-in may be covered by Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which makes it a crime to collate “information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.” Breaching section 58 is punishable with 15 years in prison. The South West Regional Cyber Crime Unit as well as the National Crime Agency are both investigating the leak.
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