Independent review commissioned into PSNI data leak

An “independently-led end-to-end review” has been commissioned into the major PSNI data leak earlier this month in which the personal and employment data of 10,000 police officers and staff was published online.

The review will also examine other data breaches which have since come to light, including the loss of a police officer’s laptop and notebook containing details of 42 officers and staff which fell from a moving vehicle last week.

It will be led by Assistant Commissioner Pete O’Doherty, the National Police Chief’s Council lead officer for Information Assurance, and has been asked to provide an initial report within one month, with a final report expected by the end of November.

Announcing the review at a press conference in Belfast on Tuesday afternoon, Deirdre Toner, the chair of the scrutiny body the Policing Board, said the Chief Constable, Simon Byrne, “retains the confidence” of the Board.

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She said conversations with him had been “constructive, proactive” and “certainly crunchy.”

Reading a statement on behalf of the Board, Ms Toner said the breaches had “damaged the reputation of the [police] service and impacted the confidence of officers, staff and others” and it was “vitally important that confidence is restored.”

Mr Byrne met the Board earlier on Tuesday but left without taking questions from the media.

[ In Northern Ireland everyone still knows where you live ]

In a brief statement later, Mr Byrne said it had been a “constructive” meeting and he recognised the “gravity of the situation and the challenges ahead,” adding that the review would “provide answers to questions.”

The Board’s vice chair, Edgar Jardine, said Board members were “unanimous” in its support for the Chief Constable and of the nine representative organisations it had been in touch with on Tuesday, “no one was challenging that position.”

He said “confidence can never be unconditional or a blank cheque,” and the review commissioned was “very thorough” and “will give us a lot of detail and clearly the Board will have to deal with the consequences of that when we get the findings.”

On August 8th the PSNI mistakenly released the surname, first initial and employment details – including where they work and their department – of every serving police officer and civilian member of staff alongside a response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, which was then published online.

Last week the Chief Constable confirmed the details were now in the hands of dissident republicans after a section of the data – several A4 pages – appeared on a wall opposite the Sinn Féin office on the Falls Road in west Belfast.

On Monday 50-year-old Christopher Paul O’Kane, from Main Street in Feeny, Co Derry, appeared in court charged with accused of possessing documents or records likely to be useful to terrorists and the possession of two mobile phones for use in terrorism following the leak.

The review, which has been jointly commissioned by the Policing Board and the PSNI, will look at the processes and actions leading to the breach and any organisational, management or governance factors which it allowed it to occur.

[ PSNI chief constable ‘now confident’ dissident republicans have sensitive information ]

It also aims to identify any action required to prevent further data breaches and prevent similar incidents happening in the future, as well as restoring confidence in the PSNI’s approach to information security management.

The Board will “put in place monitoring arrangements to ensure effective implementation of the recommendations flowing from the end-to-end review,” Ms Toner said.

In response to questions about the independence of the review, Mr Jardine said the review team had “no relationship with the PSNI” and as its work progresses the Board would have “an opportunity to challenge where we have concerns.”