Police Service of Northern Ireland in ‘major data breach’ affecting officers and civilian staff

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has been involved in a major data breach affecting officers and civilian staff.

The service inadvertently published information on every single police officer and member of police staff, in a case of “human error” in response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request earlier today.

The breach involves the surname, initial, the rank or grade, the location and the departments of all PSNI staff, but does not involve the officers’ and civilians’ private addresses.

Police Service of Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Chris Todd apologised to officers over the breach, saying: “I’ve had to inform the Information Commissioner’s office of a significant data breach that we’re responsible for.

“This is unacceptable”.

He said it was a result of “human error” with the people involved in the process having “acted in good faith”.

Mr Todd said the information was mistakenly public for approximately two and a half to three hours after being published at 2.30pm on Tuesday afternoon.

Image:
Assistant Chief Constable Chris Todd

The data breach was brought to his attention at 4pm and was then taken down within the hour.

Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland Secretary has said he is “deeply concerned” about the breach.

Writing on X (formerly Twitter), he said: “My officials are in close contact with senior officers and are keeping me updated.”

Explaining how the breach happened, Mr Todd said: “What’s happened is we’ve received a Freedom of Information request, that’s quite a routine inquiry, nothing untoward in that.

“We’ve responded to that request, which was seeking to understand the total numbers of officers and staff at all ranks and grade across the organisation, and in the response, unfortunately, one of our colleagues has embedded the source data, which informed that request.

“So, what was within that data was the surname, initial, the rank or grade, the location and the departments for each of our current employees across the police service.”

According to the Belfast Telegraph, a spreadsheet was published online relating to how many officers the PSNI has of each rank – but the spreadsheet had a second tab that contained more detailed information about thousands of staff members and their employment.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has been notified about the incident.

An ICO spokesperson said: “The Police Service of Northern Ireland has made us aware of an incident and we are assessing the information provided.”

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Liam Kelly, chair of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland (PFNI), described a potential major security breach of officers’ details by the PSNI as “monumental”.

He added: “Even if it was done accidentally, it still represents a data and security breach that should never have happened.

“Rigorous safeguards ought to have been in place to protect this valuable information which, if in the wrong hands, could do incalculable damage.

“The men and women I represent are appalled by this breach. They are shocked, dismayed and justifiably angry. Like me, they are demanding action to address this unprecedented disclosure of sensitive information.

“We have many colleagues who do everything possible to protect their police roles. We’re fortunate that the PSNI spreadsheet didn’t contain officer and staff home addresses, otherwise we would be facing a potentially calamitous situation.”

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