Tenerife Court Acquits Police Officer Accused of Leaking Confidential Information

The Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has acquitted a National Police officer accused of disclosing confidential information. The case centered on whether the officer broke the law by searching for a license plate in official records at the request of his father-in-law.

The incident occurred in late 2022, when the officer’s father-in-law, worried about thefts at his workshop, asked the officer to identify the owners of several suspicious vehicles parked nearby. The officer used his work terminal to run the plates, which were part of an undercover police operation investigating illegal weapons.

While the officer admitted to performing the search, the court ruled there was insufficient evidence to convict him of a crime. Crucially, the judges found that the officer never actually accessed any secret information. When he entered the license plate into the system, it returned an error message, meaning no confidential data was retrieved or shared.

The court also noted that there was no clear agreement among the police witnesses on whether an error message in the database should be interpreted as a sign that a vehicle is part of an undercover operation.

The ruling emphasizes that for a criminal conviction, the prosecution must prove that the accused intentionally shared sensitive information that compromised an investigation. In this case, the court found the father-in-law’s explanation—that he was simply trying to protect his property—to be credible. Furthermore, the weapons investigation was never actually compromised by the incident.

This judgment sets an important precedent by distinguishing between a potential disciplinary issue and a criminal offense. The court clarified that while accessing a database improperly may be an administrative matter, it does not automatically constitute a crime unless the disclosure of secret information is proven. Additionally, the judges reminded that an accused person’s right to remain silent cannot be used as evidence of their guilt.