The Guardian reported on Tuesday that the UK has failed to hand over information regarding 75,000 convictions to other EU countries where the perpetrators were from.

A computer error that went undiscovered for five years was at fault for the failure to send a third of all records concerning foreigners to other EU members. After the discovery of the error, it was covered up in an attempt to save the reputation of the UK. ACRO Criminal Records Office meeting minutes state that reputation concerns were a factor in choosing to not send out notifications when the error was discovered. The unsent records go back as far as 2012.

Due to the error, these convicts could have traveled back to their home countries without notifying local authorities, as is standard.

This comes at a bad time for the UK who will soon be negotiating with the EU over their continuing relationship after Brexit.

An ACRO spokesperson said that the issue arose when they realized that not all activity files, such as those where the person had dual nationality, were sent to ACRO. They are working on a software update to fix the issue.