PSNI fined over £750,000 over data breach

The PSNI has been fined £750,000 for a data breach which saw details of all its officer and staff end up in the hands of dissident republicans.

The fine, equal to roughly €897,000, was levied by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

It said it had taken into account the fact that the PSNI was publicly funded and in a difficult budgetary position.

But for those circumstances the fine would have been set at more than €6.5m.

The ICO found that simple to implement procedures could have prevented the serious breach.

It happened when a spreadsheet containing the information was inadvertently attached to a Freedom of Information Response.

The spreadsheet included the surnames, initials, rank and roles of all 9,483 PSNI officer and civilian staff.

The information was published and visible on a Freedom of Information website for just over two hours before it was spotted and deleted.

But by then it had been downloaded. Six days later the PSNI said they were working on the assumption that the file had been accessed by dissident republicans.

'Impossible to imagine fear' breach caused - Edwards

UK Information Commissioner John Edwards said: "I cannot think of a clearer example to prove how critical it is to keep personal information safe.

"It is impossible to imagine the fear and uncertainty this breach - which should never have happened - caused PSNI officers and staff.

"A lack of simple internal administration procedures resulted in the personal details of an entire workforce - many of whom had made great sacrifices to conceal their employment - being exposed."

The leak led to eight PSNI employees leaving to look for other work, others complained of the stress it had added to family life.

One person told the ICO they had spent over £1,000 (€1,200) upgrading the security at their home.

PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Chris Todd said the fine would compound the financial pressure the police were under.

He said: "The personal testimonies above serve as a stark reminder of the impact the data loss had on our officers and staff and I know this will once again be to the forefront of their minds.

"As a service we are in a different place today than we were last August and we have continued to work tirelessly to devalue the compromised dataset by introducing a number of measures for officers and staff."

The PSNI has previously said it believes the data leak could cost it up to £240m (€288m) in security and compensation costs.

Seven thousand claims for compensation have been received.