‘Most disastrous’ data breach in Northern Ireland history to send officers scrambling for cover
By Neil Johnston and James Crisp
Police officers working with MI5 could be forced to move jobs or even relocate to the mainland after the biggest police security breach in Northern Irish history.
Sources said dozens of officers who assist with the security services day-to-day operations will be forced to seek an urgent safety assessment after their rank, name and unit were published online.
The officers, based at MI5’s Northern Irish headquarters at Palace Barracks, Holywood, assist the security service on raids and surveillance operations or simply provide local knowledge.
Exposed: Northern Ireland police officers stand guard outside the Grand Central Hotel, when US President Joe Biden visited in April.Credit: Reuters
The security service’s own staff are not affected by the details of 10,000 police officers and staff being published by mistake on Tuesday in response to a freedom of information (FOI) request.
The database included hundreds of Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers working in intelligence, the riot squad, and 130 involved in close protection or bodyguard duties for senior politicians or judges.
More than 345,000 pieces of information were published including the surname and first initial of every employee, their rank or grade, where they are based and the unit they work in.
Catholic police officers are at special risk. Northern Ireland.Credit: iStock
Some staff working in surveillance duties were defined simply as “Secret”.
Police have issued personal security advice to all of the officers and staff and have established an emergency threat assessment group that will look at the welfare concerns of all concerned.
However, sources said the damage was already done and the leak was the most disastrous security breach in Northern Irish policing history.
“On a scale of one to five, five being the worst possible, this is six,” a police source said, adding officers worst affected could be moved elsewhere in the UK and described the scale of the breach as “humongous”.
Officers are more likely to be moved within Northern Ireland under a scheme where the government purchases their house and relocates them. Others may quit having not told family or friends they worked for the police.
Referring to an IRA break-in at the Royal Ulster Constabulary’s Special Branch offices in Castlereagh in 2002, which was regarded as a disaster for security and a coup for the terror group, the source added: “The accepted wisdom is ‘FOI-gate’ will dwarf Castlereagh.
“This could be dynamite in the wrong hands. It makes Castlereagh look like Mickey Mouse.”
The force on Tuesday declared a “critical incident” over the leak before admitting to a second major blunder 90 minutes later.
It revealed that a spreadsheet containing the names of more than 200 serving officers and staff, a police laptop and radio were stolen from the back of a car last month.
It is the third major breach since April when a document containing top secret details on US president Joe Biden’s visit to Northern Ireland was found by a member of the public on a Belfast street.
Police officers already have to take extra precautions owing to the threat from dissident republicans who in February gunned down a senior detective in front of school children.
The shooting in Omagh, which left DCI John Caldwell with life-changing injuries, was a reminder of the dangers facing officers. A month later the terror threat in Northern Ireland was raised to severe, meaning an attack is highly likely.
The officers in the database were named after a now “distraught” junior member of staff responding to a “benign” freedom of information request on police numbers forgot to remove the master spreadsheet containing sensitive data.
They submitted a response to the request from an “armchair journalist” through the Whatdotheyknow website.
Users of the website can set an alert for when new data is published about the PSNI and the link is believed to have gone live at around 2.30pm on Tuesday, with the Assistant Chief Constable notified at around 4pm.
The database was removed between 30 minutes and an hour later as relatives of officers frantically called local papers to raise the alarm about the breach.
Since then, it has been circulating on police WhatsApp groups but it is feared it will already be in the hands of criminals.
One person who works closely with the police said: “It’s the single biggest disaster in the history of the PSNI, I don’t care what anyone is saying to excuse it, it’s a gift for militant republicans”
Simon Byrne, the Chief Constable, has cut short a family holiday to face questions over the breach as the Information Commissioner launched its own investigation into the blunder.
The senior police officer is due to attend an emergency meeting of the Northern Ireland Policing Board on Thursday amid calls for answers from senior politicians.
“I continue to be kept abreast of developments in relation to this very serious matter,” Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said on Wednesday.
Liam Kelly, chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, said he was “angry, I’m shocked and I’m looking for answers”.
“The reality is this is unprecedented,” he said. “I don’t think there has ever been a security breach of this calibre in this manifestation anywhere in UK policing, let alone the PSNI.”
He said it was “galling” for officers who faced the threat of dissident republicans both off and on duty that it was the PSNI itself which had “volunteered this information into the public domain and potentially compromised a number of officers”.
It is feared the damage in morale terms and recruitment, especially of Catholics who are deeply under-represented in the force, will be devastating. Kelly said: “There are officers from a nationalist Catholic background who are living in communities who are maybe not aware they are in the police service and now their names are potentially public knowledge.”
He added that while officers like himself were public facing, many in more sensitive roles had their details secret for a reason.
“You’ve got people working on national security matters with MI5, you’ve got officers working in intelligence and the surveillance world where their anonymity is key and allows them to make the inroads to keep our society and officers safe,” he added.
“They are worried that that veil of secrecy has been lifted on them and they are feeling particularly vulnerable. Can they continue in the roles they are currently doing and then if they can’t what does their future look like either inside or outside policing? It’s a life and death situation for those at the cutting edge.”
Assistant Chief Constable Chris Todd, who identified himself as senior information risk owner, said he fully understood the “very real concerns being felt by our colleagues and their families” and the force was working hard to mitigate the risk.
He added that he was “working with our security partners and organisations to investigate this incident” and had updated advice to officers and staff.
“We have also sought the assistance of an independent advisor to conduct an end-to-end review of our processes in order to understand what happened, how it happened and what we can do immediately to prevent such a breach happening in the future.
“This is an extremely serious situation. The Chief Constable is cutting his family holiday short and returning to Northern Ireland to attend tomorrow’s special sitting of the Northern Ireland Policing Board. We will continue to keep the Information Commissioner’s Office updated as the investigation continues.”
The Telegraph, London
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