The chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board has announced that an “independently-led end-to-end review” of the circumstances surrounding recent PSNI data breaches has been commissioned.
It comes after personal data on all serving members of the PSNI was mistakenly published earlier this month in response to a Freedom of Information request.
Details of the 9,483 people released included the surname and first initial of every employee, their rank or grade, where they are based and the unit they work in.
A number of other data breaches have since come to light, including the loss of a police officer’s laptop and notebook which contained details of 42 officers and members of staff after the items fell from a moving vehicle last week.
Northern Ireland Policing Board chair Deirdre Toner said: “This breach and the subsequent breaches have damaged the reputation of the service and impacted the confidence of officers, staff and others in the service’s ability to protect personal information.”
Her comments follow a meeting of the board and Chief Constable Simon Byrne on Tuesday.
She said the end-to-end review will be led by Assistant Commissioner Pete O’Doherty, the National Police Chiefs Council lead officer for information assurance, and supported by a specialist team.
It will look at the process and actions leading to the breach and if there were any organisational, governance or management issues that allowed the breach to happen.
Ms Toner said it will identify any action required to prevent further data breaches and build more robust risk mitigation systems.
She said: “The review team have been tasked to have an initial report back to the board within one month. A final report is expected by the end of November and will be made available for public release.”
She said these measures were essential to “help rebuild trust and confidence” in the PSNI.
The board will put in place monitoring measures to ensure “effective implementation of the recommendations” which stem from the review.
Ms Toner added: “While much remains to be done, the board acknowledges the comprehensive response that has been mobilised and delivered by the PSNI.”
The chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board has said the Chief Constable “retains the confidence of the board” but said conversations with Mr Byrne were “crunchy”.
Ms Toner said: “These data breaches will be a standing agenda item on the monthly public and private accountability sessions with the Chief Constable for as long as is necessary so that progress on dealing with all the consequences from the breaches – including support mechanisms and risk assessments for police officers and staff – can be tracked and assessed.
“The Chief Constable retains the confidence of the board to lead the service and the senior team in the wide-ranging programme of work which has been initiated to address all aspects of the data breaches to ensure appropriate support mechanisms are in place for police officers and staff.”
Speaking after the meeting, she said “it’s been a long day”, adding that a “wide range of issues” were discussed.
“It was constructive, proactive. Yes, it was certainly crunchy. There’s no doubt about that.”
Ms Toner added: “The Chief Constable’s continued leadership has not been called into question by the board at this time.
“That’s the position of the board at this point in time.
“It’s not that confidence can change, and as I said it’s not an open cheque book, as we say.
“But we need to focus on systems now, not on individuals.”
