The London Metropolitan Police announced that it was taking security measures after an “unauthorized access to the computer system of one of its suppliers” that has led to a data breach.
The company had the names, ranks, photographs and salaries of officers and agents, but not their addresses, phone numbers or financial data, police said in a statement.
The Sun newspaper reported on Sunday that “cybercriminals have penetrated the computer systems” of the company that prints identity cards and passes for the London Police, the UK’s largest police force.
Scotland Yard said investigators are now working with the company to see if there have been any breaches of its data security.
According to one of its spokespersons, it was impossible to know when the hack took place or how many personnel might have been affected. “Security measures have been taken… following this report,” police added in a statement.
For the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents grassroots police, the security breach is likely to cause “incredible concern and anger” among officers. “We share this angry feeling (…) It is an amazing security breach, which should never have happened,” said its vice president Rick Prior.
This announcement comes a few weeks after a data breach within the Northern Ireland Police.
As of early August, data on some 10,000 police officers and personnel had been leaked, including their place of work, employees’ last names and initials, rank, duty station and unit in which they worked.
The leak comes months after the province’s terror alert level was raised to “severe” in response to an assassination attempt on a top official by dissident Republicans.
Following the revelations about the London police, Norfolk and Suffolk (east) police also announced that details relating to 1,000 people, including crime victims, had been leaked.
