‘I don’t sleep at night’ – victims of PSNI breach reveal impact as ICO confirms £750k fine


Information commissioner imposes financial penalty on Police Service of Northern Ireland and says ‘it is impossible to imagine the fear and uncertainty’ caused by data breach affecting thousands of officers

The Information Commissioner’s Office has confirmed that it will penalise the Police Service of Northern Ireland with a £750,000 fine after a data breach that the regulator said has caused incalculable “fear and uncertainty” for those affected.

In responding to a freedom of information request last summer, PSNI mistakenly disclosed the surnames, initials, ranks, and specific roles of all of the force’s 9,483 serving officers and other staff. This information was available online – via the WhatDoTheyKnow website – for over two hours. The service subsequently announced that the information was believed to have ended up in the hands of dissident republican paramilitaries.

Many officers and police employees in Northern Ireland take steps to ensure their work and identity remains secret and, in confirming the imposition of a six-figure fine, the ICO published statements from those affected that illustrate the harm caused by the disclosure.

One said that “everything has culminated and become too much for me to the point that I have accepted another job outside of the police… to say I am devastated is an understatement, but I feel I have no choice”.

Others reported the “great lengths” they had gone to in protecting their identity, including having “no social media presence, removal from the electoral roll, 192.com, never revealing my job to others and lying about where I work whenever asked”.

One victim said: “How has this impacted on me? I don’t sleep at night. I continually get up through the night when I hear a noise outside to check that everything is OK. I have spent over £1,000 installing modern CCTV and lighting around my home, because of the exposure.”


8 August 2023
Date that the breach occurred

140 minutes
Duration of time that the data set was publicly visible and accessible online

9,483
Number of officers and staff impacted by the data breach

£5.6m
Size of the fine that would have been issued if PSNI were not a public body


Some said that they also feared for the welfare and security of their family members.

“I believe the risk to my personal security and the safety of my wife and… young children is more significant for me due to the fact that I grew up in the area where we are most active,” one statement said. As a result of this many persons involved and linked to paramilitary groups and wider criminal circles in this area would know me or remember me from both school and childhood. I have gone to great lengths to keep my occupation confidential. Only close family and friends previously had knowledge of it.”

PSNI is currently negotiating compensation with legal representatives of all those affected. The service has indicated that it could ultimately pay out as much as £240m.

‘Proportionate and dissuasive’
On top of the harm caused, the ICO said that its “investigation found that simple-to-implement procedures could have prevented the serious breach”.

For the past two years, the regulator has trialled an approach in which it has generally avoided imposing fines on public bodies but has, instead, focused on raising standards. But the PSNI’s breach was so grave that the watchdog did not only issue a financial penalty – but did not reduce the proposed amount, despite representations from a police service that last year reported a £107m funding gap.

The ICO even noted that, had the incident not involved a public-sector entity, it would have fined the organisation responsible £5.6m. But the regulator did go back on its previous plan to accompany the fine with a formal enforcement notice.

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. Whilst I am aware of the financial pressures facing PSNI, my role as commissioner is to take action to protect people’s information rights and this includes issuing proportionate, dissuasive fines. I am satisfied, with the application of the public sector approach, this has been achieved in this case. Let this be a lesson learned for all organisations. Check, challenge and change your disclosure procedures to ensure you protect people’s personal information.”

“Many persons involved and linked to paramilitary groups and wider criminal circles in this area would know me or remember me from both school and childhood. I have gone to great lengths to keep my occupation confidential.”

PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher said that he was “extremely disappointed” by the ICO’s decision not to reduce the size of the fine. But he welcomed the removal of the proposed enforcement notice – a choice which he claimed is “a direct result of the police service proving to the ICO that we had implemented the changes recommended to improve the security of personal information”.

“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,” Boutcher added. “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. We have provided significant crime prevention advice to our officers and staff and their families via online tools, advice clinics and home visits.”

He added: “We continue to progress the recommendations made by the ICO and also the recommendations made by the Independent Review Team who published their findings in December 2023, including the establishment of the deputy chief constable as the senior information risk owner and the establishment of a Strategic Data Board and Data Delivery Group, ensuring that information security and data protection matters are afforded the support and attention they critically deserve. Work is ongoing to ensure everything that can be done is being done to mitigate any risk of such a loss occurring in the future.”

The chief constable said that about four-fifths of the costs of the fine – £610,000 – had been accounted for in PSNI’s 2023/24 budget. The remaining £140,000 will impact this year’s finances.

Boutcher’s predecessor Simon Byrne resigned less than a month after the data breach occurred.

Sam Trendall

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