COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The Columbus Division of Police online report portal is still not back online following last summer’s cyberattack, and some are wondering when it will be restored.

On the City of Columbus’ website to find police reports, under one section is the sentence, “The Columbus Division of Police online report portal is temporarily out of service.” The page where the portal used to be shows an error.

“It’s absolutely frustrating and it was such a user-friendly way to go,” resident Heather Breedlove said.

Breedlove lives in the city’s Hilltop section and has for most of her life. She said she used to check the online portal weekly.

“This has been home,” she said. “I know the streets to avoid and the streets that are OK, but to be able to go on there and pull that up and know exactly where I need to place myself is security,” she said. 

The portal is one of the systems affected by last summer’s ransomware attack on the city. Breedlove wished the portal was back up and running by now.

Colin Drane, founder and CEO of SpotCrime.com, said it should be, too. His company is a crime mapping and alert service that shares data from police around the country.

“The importance of this data improves trust and improves public safety; removing it does the opposite,” Drane said.

SpotCrime has about 30,000 subscribers in Columbus, according to Drane. The company recently sent a letter to those subscribers urging them to contact the city about the issue. SpotCrime has pushed for answers, too. CDP on Wednesday sent the following in an email to NBC:

“The public records portal is one of the more difficult functions to restore from the City’s cyberattack. It was housed on an older web server that, after the cyberattack, was determined not secure enough to be reconnected to external access. Tech teams are working to develop a new solution, but it is not an easy or fast fix. This is a priority that our teams are working diligently on while also balancing many other responsibilities.”

The division said it does not have information about a timeline for when the portal will be back.

“Hopefully, they’ll turn it back on,” Drane said. “They have said they’re looking into it. It’s been a year, so anything longer than a year means it’s not a priority, right? This is software. It should be easy to do and I just hope Columbus returns to a belief in accountability.”

The division said that for the time being, residents can use the community crime map, which they said has much of the same information.