Toronto Crime Stoppers pauses tips after CBC finds 1.5 million Canadian tips exposed in hack

As of 12:39 a.m. ET, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026

Toronto Crime Stoppers is pausing its tips program, effective immediately, chair Sean Sportun said in a statement late Wednesday. CBC News reported earlier in the day that its investigation found information from more than 1.5 million tips submitted to Canadian Crime Stoppers programs over the last 25 years was exposed in a hack announced in March.

In the statement, the organization told the public not to send tips by phone, online or through its app "until we have a safer way to protect you," CBC reported. The chapter said it has removed the "Tip Submit" feature from its website and will no longer accept or process any new information for the program. It also said it has advised Navigate360, the company whose P3 platform handles its tips, to immediately suspend intake for the Toronto chapter, according to CBC. CityNews reported that the chapter told the National Anonymous Call Centre to stop accepting or processing new information meant for it, including phone calls.

"People in Toronto have come to Toronto Crime Stoppers because we promised they could stay anonymous. This week's reporting shows that for some of them, that promise was broken. We are deeply sorry," Sportun said in the statement, as quoted by CBC.

"People trusted us with their safety. We will not resume taking tips until we can stand behind the system that protects them," he said, according to CityNews.

Toronto Police suspend their use of Crime Stoppers

In a statement published at 8:54 p.m. ET Wednesday, the Toronto Police Service said it "has temporarily suspended its use of Crime Stoppers while we review the information that has become available and assess the additional safeguards and security measures being implemented by Toronto Crime Stoppers and its service providers."

The service said the new information "raises serious concerns regarding the protection of confidential information provided through the Crime Stoppers program." It noted that Toronto Crime Stoppers and Toronto Police are separate organizations and that the platform involved "is operated independently of the Toronto Police Service."

Until its review is complete, the service said, people with information about crime or public safety concerns should contact Toronto Police directly through its existing reporting channels. "While this does not provide the anonymity associated with the Crime Stoppers program, it will ensure information is received directly by investigators," the statement said. It directed questions about the breach and the scope of affected information to Toronto Crime Stoppers.

What CBC found

CBC reported that more than 1.5 million tips sent to Canadian Crime Stoppers chapters were captured in the hack. According to its analysis, more than 850,000 tips, about half of all Canadian records it identified, included personally identifiable information about tipsters, people named in allegations and even Crime Stoppers staff and police. CBC said it could not determine in every instance whether the information belonged to a tipster, a victim or someone accused of a crime.

In more than 4,300 reports, CBC found, tipsters introduced themselves by full name, which it said was less than 1 per cent of all entries over 25 years. CBC said it could not verify whether all of the names were legitimate. Toronto Crime Stoppers had the most tips in the leak of any Canadian chapter, more than 179,000, according to CBC.

CBC said the data was stolen in March by a hacktivist collective called Internet Yiff Machine. In a manifesto, the group said it wanted to disprove the claim by P3 Global Intel that the platform was "anonymous" and "secure." CBC said a copy of the data was made available to researchers and journalists, including CBC, by Distributed Denial of Secrets, which it described as a U.S. non-profit that publishes hacked and leaked documents it deems to be in the public interest.

After seeing CBC's main findings, the RCMP said the breach could "jeopardize public safety, including the safety of tipsters, individuals identified in tips and police officers," CBC reported. The RCMP told CBC it had not received reports of anyone being threatened because of the breach.

In a statement to CBC, the Canadian Crime Stoppers Association said, "If there is information within the leaked records that could identify people who submitted tips, it is an extremely serious issue." CBC said Navigate360 did not respond to its requests for comment.

What Toronto Crime Stoppers says about its data

"We never ask for your name, and we don't want it," the chapter's statement said, as quoted by CBC. "But people sometimes include details to explain what they saw. 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."

According to the Toronto Sun, the chapter said 176,859 tips and 14,973 names connected to Toronto were exposed, in data dating from January 2022 to November 2025. CityNews reported that the chapter attributed those figures to Navigate360.

Sportun said Navigate360 told the chapter in March that the platform was secure and that Toronto data had not been taken. "When it told us in June that Toronto's data was affected, it didn't say what was exposed," he said, according to the Toronto Sun. "To date, we have still not seen the text of the stolen tips."

The Toronto Sun reported that Crime Stoppers said it would never contact a tipster first, and urged anyone in immediate danger to call 911.

What is not known

Toronto Crime Stoppers said Navigate360 "has not told us whether those names belong to people who submitted tips, to people who were named in those tips, or both," according to CityNews. The chapter said it has not seen the text of the stolen tips.

The chapter has not said when it will resume taking tips. CityNews reported that it plans to share details of a safer way to collect tips "in the coming days." Toronto Police said their suspension will last until their review is complete, and the statement gives no timeline.

It is not clear whether the stolen data has been sold or shared beyond researchers and journalists. Someone claiming to represent Internet Yiff Machine told CBC in September, "I briefly attempted to sell it publicly; however, changed my mind and no copy has made it into the public yet." Two cybersecurity experts told CBC they could not find copies online, but said that once a dataset has been leaked, it is generally available somewhere.

Navigate360 did not answer CBC's questions about what security measures it had taken since the hack or whether it was still collecting tips. When CBC published its follow-up story, it could still reach a tip form on the main P3 platform.