Thames Valley Police says it is impacted by global Microsoft outage

Thames Valley Police says it has been impacted by a global outage of Microsoft services.

The force is one of several across the country that has experienced issues, following problems reported with Microsoft services, first detected yesterday evening (Thursday).

Thames Valley Police, which covers Buckinghamshire, as well as Oxfordshire and Berkshire, says its emails are being impacted.

The force has asked journalists who need to contact its Corporate Communications Department to use its phone number rather than its email channels.

Thames Valley Police has not said whether there is any impact to its online reporting services, although some forces, including neighbouring Hertfordshire Constabulary, have said they are experiencing issues with this.

Microsoft says it is still working to fix problems with its Teams, Outlook and Copilot services, which it says are experiencing "connectivity problems."

The company has said the cause is an "elevated load" on its infrastructure, however its executives have claimed it is not "a cybersecurity incident."

Microsoft initially said it was seeing "positive results" in an effort to restart its services, but several hours later it said the fixes were not taking "as expected."

In an update this morning, Microsoft reported seeing “incremental improvements” in its services.

The outage is reportedly affecting 74 countries around the world, including the National Health Service here in the UK, as well as Government systems, spy agencies and court communications overseas.