After a year of lockdowns, home schooling and a bout of Covid, Kate and Matthew (not their real names) were hoping for better times as 2021 dawned. In

'Did weak wi-fi password lead the police to our door?'

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2021-05-23 07:30:08

After a year of lockdowns, home schooling and a bout of Covid, Kate and Matthew (not their real names) were hoping for better times as 2021 dawned.

Instead, one January morning, there came a knock on the door from the police who were investigating a very serious crime, involving images of child abuse being posted online.

And it was only when the case was dropped in March, with no further action, that they realised the most likely explanation for the false accusation was their wi-fi router - and its factory-set password.

Back in January, there was confusion and shock when three police officers and three detectives banged on the door of their London flat with a search warrant.

"They took everything: our desktop computer, both our laptops, our mobile phones, a laptop I had borrowed, even old mobile phones that were lying around in drawers," said Kate.

The police later told the couple that four photos depicting category B child abuse - the second-most-serious kind - had been uploaded to an online chat site a year ago.

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