Breaches hurt police morale and may help republican paramilitaries intimidate officers and their families

Police data breaches in Northern Ireland have given republican paramilitaries a powerful tool to intimidate, demoralise and target officers and their families for years to come, according to security experts.

The New IRA and other groups have gained the “upper hand” and will be able to use the unprecedented leaks of officers’ personal information to carry out psychological and possibly physical attacks, the analysts warned.

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Exclusive: Accidental publishing of names and salaries happened in March and follows scandal over PSNI leak

Another British police force has experienced a huge breach of the data of all its officers and staff, the Guardian has learned.

Cumbria police has admitted accidentally publishing the names and salaries of every one of its more than 2,000 employees and has apologised.

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There were 9,000 breaches of personal information last year but experts say not enough is being done to stop them

“It’s brutal. People are wondering if they should resign, or move house, or get fortified gates. You can feel the anger.”

The comment from a former officer in the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) underlines the real-life consequences of an all-too frequent occurrence: a data breach.

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The police’s error is hard to forgive, but ministers must treat Northern Ireland’s wider human safety needs as a priority too

A new documentary film recounts a grim story from the Northern Ireland Troubles. Half a century ago, Thomas Niedermayer was a German businessman living in Belfast. At Christmas in 1973, he was kidnapped from his home by the IRA, possibly to be traded for imprisoned bombers, and murdered. His body was found in a shallow grave in 1980. Ten years on, his widow, Ingeborg, took her own life. A year after that, the Niedermayers’ younger daughter, Renate, killed herself. Another two years later, their elder daughter, Gabriella, did the same.

The Niedermayer murder, as detailed in the Face Down documentary, was vicious. For the family, the damage lasted for generations, creating new victims and further tragedies. The lesson is frighteningly timely. This week, the Police Service of Northern Ireland mistakenly published an online spreadsheet detailing the surnames, initials, ranks or grades, locations and departments of all current PSNI officers and civilian staff members. The spreadsheet was not taken down for three hours. Approximately 10,000 people were listed. The consequences could endure for decades.

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DUP MP Sammy Wilson says serious questions must be asked at highest level of PSNI amid fears over safety of officers

The head of policing in Northern Ireland has been urged to consider his position over the mass breach of officers’ data, amid warnings that terrorists could use the information to carry out attacks.

Sammy Wilson, a Democratic Unionist party MP, suggested Simon Byrne’s future as chief constable might not be sustainable.

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The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has launched an investigation into an unprecedented data breach that disclosed details of more than 10,000 police officers and staff in Northern Ireland. The agency, which regulates data privacy laws, is working with the Police Service of Northern Ireland to establish the level of risk amid warnings that the leak may compel officers to leave the force or move their home address. The PSNI blamed human error for releasing an Excel spreadsheet that was published on an FoI website and removed two hours later once police discovered the mistake. Chris Todd, a PSNI assistant chief constable, apologised and said the error was unacceptable

• ICO to investigate risk to police officers after Northern Ireland data breach

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Data from Electoral Commission breach could allow rogue actors to create AI-generated messages in effort to manipulate elections

Data accessed in the Electoral Commission hack could help state-backed actors target voters with AI-generated disinformation, experts have warned.

The UK elections watchdog revealed on Tuesday that a hostile cyber-attack had been able to access the names and addresses of all voters registered between 2014 and 2022.

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Serving PSNI members and staff fear that they could be attacked or intimidated after their personal information was posted online in error

Police officers in Northern Ireland may consider leaving the force or moving home after an unprecedented data breach disclosed details of more than 10,000 officers and staff, it has been claimed.

Political leaders and police representatives on Wednesday grappled with the security and financial implications of an error that could expose officers, including those who work undercover, to terrorist intimidation and attack.

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Russia named as likely culprit in cyber-attack on election watchdog while police service accidentally publishes staff details

The UK election watchdog and Northern Ireland’s police service both announced serious data breaches on Tuesday, in the latest example of the vulnerability of personal details to hacks and human error.

The UK data regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), is looking at the incidents, which have raised immediate safety concerns over the consequences of leaking personal data. Here is what has happened and what we know so far.

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Electoral Commission hack is reminder of importance of protecting democratic system where it counts

It turns out that while Conservative ministers were spending hours of parliamentary time in 2021-22 introducing requirements for voters to produce ID at polling stations – to protect elections against a threat most experts believed was negligible – the Electoral Commission was being hacked by “hostile actors”.

These hackers, who have not been identified and whose motivations are unclear, were able to access the data, such as home addresses, of millions of voters, many of whom choose not to make that information publicly available.

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