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A UK Police Force Suspends Working From Home After Finding Automated Keystroke Scam (bbc.co.uk)

(Saturday October 04, 2025 @05:49PM (EditorDavid) from the are-you-being-served dept.)


The Greater Manchester Police force has 12,677 employees. But they've now suspended work-from-home privileges, [1]reports the BBC , "following an investigation into so-called 'key-jamming', which can allow people to falsely appear to be working. "Twenty-six police officers, staff and contractors are facing misconduct proceedings following the probe, the force said."

One constable told a hearing that a police detective working from home had made it look like his computer was in use on 38 different occasions over 12 days, [2]according to an earlier BBC article . The evidence "showed lengthy periods where the only activity is single keystrokes, pressing the 'H' key about 30 times, between 10:28 and 11:56 GMT on 3 December, and then the 'I' key more than 16,000 times." The detective "used key jamming for 45 hours out of a total of 85 he was logged in for and was frequently away from the keyboard for half of his working day."

The constable said the detective's motivation was "laziness" — and the detective has already resigned.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader [3]Bruce66423 for sharing the article.



[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gw0wyjxxno

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgmzpjreywgo

[3] https://slashdot.org/~Bruce66423



police officers working from home? and not on the (Score:4)

by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 )

police officers working from home? and not on the beat?

Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

by DarkLordBelial ( 4474205 )

No doubt patrolling social media for hurty words.

Re: (Score:2)

by ffkom ( 3519199 )

Probably, since [1]they abandoned even investigating bike theft [bbc.com].

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8jm3wxvlkjo

should of used the bird to hit the letter y (Score:1)

by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 )

should of used the bird to hit the letter y

AT... (Score:2)

by kackle ( 910159 )

What's wrong with ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H once in a while. They ARE working remotely.

Again, this sort of thing is a management problem (Score:4, Interesting)

by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 )

You'd think, if someone is managing a group of detectives, they would be regularly discussing progress on their cases, hearing about specific steps taken in investigations, etc. etc. If you can't meet face to face (and I seriously doubt that "deep cover" is that common), you could certainly require reports that included that sort of specific info.

If you're resorting to management by keystroke logger, you're likely a lazy or incompetent manager who shouldn't be in that position. You're really only gonna catch the really, REALLY dumb workers.

Quite an overreaction... (Score:2)

by ctilsie242 ( 4841247 )

I'm curious why it would even matter. Are the detectives hitting their metrics? Are cases getting done? If so, why care so much that one has to perhaps skirt near violating regulations with a keylogger?

If performance is an issue, perhaps a word to the wise, with escalating stuff?

An atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways.
-- Isaac Asimov