Earlier this year, the Information Commisioner's Office launched an investigation into how a reporting form on CEOP's website was found insecure by a member of the public.

A webpage used to report alleged offenders was unencrypted, with users accessing the form through a third-party website, such as Google or Facebook, reached an http address instead of the secure https URL.

CEOP, which was set up in 2006 to protect children from paedophiles online, said the issue was fixed the same day it was reported.

The ICO found that the fault had not been identified either during initial testing of the new website, or in the following months. "Several" other website security weaknesses were also revealed during the investigation.

Instead of encrypting the data before it was sent to CEOP's servers, the form was encrypted when it was received by the servers that host the website.