More Ontario police forces pause Crime Stoppers use after cyber breach

Several Ontario police forces are suspending their use of Crime Stoppers as concerns grow over a cybersecurity breach that potentially exposed identifying information included in some anonymous tips.

Police in Halton, Peel and York regions, Hamilton and Kingston have announced suspensions after Toronto Crime Stoppers paused its phone, online and app-based tip intake.

“Crime Stoppers’ brand as we know it is essentially dead,” tech analyst Carmi Levy told Global News.

“This is catastrophic. If you called in information on any crime at all, and you assumed that information would be held confidential, that has now been blown up.”

In March, hackers stole data from P3, the tip-management software Toronto Crime Stoppers has used since 2018, Chair Sean Sportun said in a statement Wednesday.

Navigate360, which provides the P3 platform, “repeatedly” assured Toronto Crime Stoppers the system was secure, Sportun said. A month after the attack, the provider said some Canadian data had been stolen but that Toronto submissions were not affected, he added.

Sportun said the organization was told in June tips submitted to the platform between January 2022 and November 2025 were affected. A month later, it pegged the figure at 176,859 tips affected, adding 12,392 of them may contain personal information.

“We never ask for your name, and we don’t want it. But people sometimes include details to explain what they saw,” Sportun said.

“Before a tip goes to investigators, our practice is to remove those details. It has come to light that some of those original tips containing potentially identifying information were stolen from P3.”

In September and October, Navigate360 gave Toronto Crime Stoppers a list of 14,973 names found in the breach. However, Sportun said the list “lacks detail necessary to measure the risk involved” because it did not identify who the names belonged to.

Toronto Crime Stoppers continues to press Navigate360 for details.

Navigate360 did not immediately return Global News’ request for comment.

Sportun added that “anonymously sourced information” reported this week had not been shared with Toronto Crime Stoppers. An investigation by CBC published Wednesday reported that more than 1.5 million Canadian Crime Stoppers tips were affected.

Sean Sparling, a former deputy chief of the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service, told Global News officers across Canada use Crime Stoppers “on a daily basis.”

He said he relied on Crime Stoppers for many of his own investigations.

“Knowing Crime Stoppers and how well it’s organized, how well it works and its importance to the law enforcement community and the safety of our communities, I fully expect they’re going to recover from this,” Sparling said.

Crime Stoppers programs in Peel and Hamilton said in separate statements Thursday they continue to press Navigate360 for more information.

Police forces in Kingston, York and Halton regions said Thursday they’re assessing the impact of the breach on their operations.

Toronto police said Wednesday the service is temporarily suspending its use of Crime Stoppers while it assesses new safeguards and other measures.

Each police force said members of the public can submit information through existing police reporting channels, though those methods are not anonymous.

Anyone facing an immediate emergency should call 911.

“Until we have a safer way to protect you, please do not send us tips by phone, online or through the app,” Sportun said.

“Pausing our program means that option isn’t available now, and we did not make this decision lightly. We are pausing because those people deserve a system we can fully stand behind.”