The chair of Toronto Crime Stoppers says the data breach that stole more than 176,000 tips has been “devastating” for the program as well as for the public and police partners who relied on the anonymous tip line for decades.
The breach prompted Toronto Crime Stoppers Wednesday night to temporarily pause accepting tips. Nearly 15,000 names in those tips were also stolen when its tip software, P3, was hacked in March.
In an interview with CP24 on Thursday afternoon, Sean Sportun, the chair of Toronto Crime Stoppers, said pausing the tip line was the right move.
“It’s community safety first and foremost of what we need to do for our community, that’s our mission. So, we had to make that decision, and it’s the right decision to make,” Sportun said.
Crime Stoppers has allowed members of the public to report anonymous tips about crimes for decades. The Toronto chapter was founded in 1984 and is considered one of the largest in North America.
While Crime Stoppers never ask for names, some tipsters include personal details to explain what they saw, Toronto Crime Stoppers said. It added that before the tip is passed to police, the practice is to remove those details.
“Our board has been working hard over 40 years to gain the trust of our community, and for this to happen, as a result of our P3 vendor tip software management, is very disappointing,” Sportun said.
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Why was the program not paused sooner?
Toronto Crime Stoppers has said that Navigate360, which owns P3, didn’t confirm until June that tips between Jan. 2022 and Nov. 2025 were stolen in the March hack. The hackers used a stolen customer account’s log in to access the software, according to Toronto Crime Stoppers.
In July, Navigate360 then confirmed the total number of tips as well as the potential of personal information being stolen.
On Thursday, Sportun explained why it took Toronto Crime Stoppers until Wednesday to notify the public about the breach and stop accepting tips.
He claimed that Toronto Crime Stoppers has been in the dark on the extent of the breach. Sportun said the group has asked Navigate360 “many times” for more information, but nothing has been shared.
“The one thing that we have asked for many times and have not been receiving is the metadata. All we received are the tip numbers. We have to go through that. We don’t know exactly what was taken until we get the information back,” Sportun said.
But when CBC News published a story about the breach on Wednesday, which Sportun said included information they’ve been seeking since the hack happened, Toronto Crime Stoppers decided to temporarily halt its operation.
“We’ve retained our own legal counsel to help mitigate and get the information back from P3, and even then, we’re still, to a degree, not getting the responses back that we request,” Sportun said.
‘I’m upset’
Toronto Police Service (TPS) has since suspended its use of Crime Stoppers. Several police services in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area have followed suit.
“I’m upset,” Sportun said. “Our board is upset. Not only from a board perspective, we’re upset on behalf of the community. We are upset on behalf of our police partners.”
TPS said it will be conducting a review of Crime Stoppers and what safety measures should be implemented in response to the breach before resuming the partnership.
“We recognize the important role Crime Stoppers has played in supporting community safety and investigations over many years and appreciate the seriousness with which it is approaching this matter,” TPS said.
Sportun shared that Toronto Crime Stoppers, working with other local chapters of the program, is “very close” to finding a new platform for tips.
“We need to make sure that not only is it safe for the users of our community, it’s safe for our police partners to use, and then it needs to go right through the whole cybersecurity aspects of that platform,” he said.
For Sportun, he still believes in the role of Crime Stoppers in keeping the community safe, and he is committed to rebuilding confidence with the public and police.
“We will get through this,” he said. “We will work to regain public trust of the community. We will work to regain the trust of our police partners.”
According to Toronto Crime Stoppers, since 1984, nearly 12,000 arrests have been made due to tips submitted.
