Cops get grilling over joke tweet

The National Police Air Service is facing an investigation after one of its helicopter crew thought they would have a laugh by posting a spy-cam picture of comedian Michael McIntyre standing in a London street.
The photo, posted on the National Police Air Service’s London twitter account (@NPASLondon), was captioned: “Whilst on tasking in central London this morning we spotted a certain energetic funny man … Can you guess who?”
The image provoked anger on social media, with many people expressing concern that the tweet was inappropriate.
NPAS later removed the tweet, despite ground operations director for the NPAS Supt Richard Watson claiming “As far as we are aware, it does not breach any data protection legislation.”
However, the Information Commissioner’s Office has waded into the row. It said: “Police forces like all other organisations must comply with the Data Protection Act. The police especially must ensure that they have legitimate grounds for processing personal data and disclosing images of this nature without a justifiable policing purpose could potentially breach the Data Protection Act. We will follow this up with the Force concerned.”