HONG KONG, March 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Hong Kong Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC) officially apologized on Saturday to the public for the leak of information on 20,000 people who complained about police over the past decade, saying the incident was a " terrible mistake."

    After a three-hour closed door emergency meeting on Saturday morning, the IPCC decided to launch a four-member special team headed by the council chairman Ronny Wong to investigate the incident while immediate remedy measures were taken to bring the damage to its lowest level.

    "The IPCC is greatly concerned over the leak of the personal data on the Internet," Wong told reporters after the council's emergency meeting, "thus we offered a sincere and unreserved apology to the public and to those were affected."

    Hong Kong media reported on Friday that a database apparently from the IPCC revealed on the Internet highly confidential records dating back to 1996 about 20,000 names, addresses and Hong Kong identity card numbers for each complainant towards the police.

    "Undoubtedly, this incident has hurt the entire society and the integrity of the IPCC," Wong said, adding the council must face up to this severe test to recover citizens' confidence on us."

    The IPCC has joined hands with departments like the Police business crime investigation to probe how the data were uploaded on the Internet and contacted Google.com, demanding the search engine and Internet service provider delete any content related to the leaked data.

    The personal files were saved in an independent computer of the IPCC, which is not linked to the Internet, according to a spokeswoman for the council.

    At least ten staffs within the council are entitled to have access to such data, the spokeswoman said, adding a computer maintenance company for the council can also view such files.

    "We haven't figured out how such data appeared on the Internet," Wong said, "that is what we are going to investigate in the next three days."

    "We can't rule out any possibility," he added.

    Wong said remedy measures had already been in place but he was reluctant to give further details, citing security reason for further investigation.

    The council also appealed to the public to refrain from downloading such personal data from the Internet to prevent further damage. Enditem