Man held on suspicion of assortment of knowledge more likely to be helpful to terrorists after NI police leak

A person has been arrested on suspicion of gathering info “likely to be useful for terrorists” following final week’s Northern Ireland Police knowledge breach.

The drive declared a vital incident after knowledge on all 10,000 officers and employees was accidentally disclosed online.

Detectives carried out a search in Lurgan, County Armagh, on Wednesday and arrested a 39-year-old man.

Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Hill mentioned the drive was “working tirelessly to address the risk posed to officers and staff” and the arrest was “one piece of a large-scale operation”.

“We will continue in our efforts to disrupt criminal activity associated with this Freedom of Information (FOI) data breach and to keep communities, and our officers and staff who serve them, safe,” he mentioned.

Sky’s senior Ireland correspondent, David Blevins, mentioned police weren’t investigating the breach itself, however that the arrest comes after the leaked info had been extensively circulated on-line.

He mentioned the arrested man was being questioned on the critical crime suite at Belfast’s Musgrave police station.

The leaked names appeared on-line for 2 hours after the drive responded to an FOI request from an internet site that needed to know what number of officers had been serving in every rank.

However, it seems somebody inadvertently hooked up a spreadsheet to the reply that additionally included their names.

The knowledge is believed to now be in possession of dissident republicans.

A redacted model of the doc was earlier this week posted on a wall dealing with a Sinn Fein workplace in Belfast in a “sinister” try and intimidate one in every of its politicians.

“There are serious concerns among police officers and staff – the police federation here is calling for maximum vigilance,” mentioned Blevins.

Read extra:
Why is leak so serious and why do some officers feel vulnerable?

The terrorist menace in Northern Ireland is now deemed to be “severe”.

The FOI knowledge leak was adopted by disclosure of a second breach in July regarding stolen paperwork and a laptop computer.

Names of round 200 serving officers and employees are believed to have been on a spreadsheet on the laptop computer, which was taken from a personal automobile in Newtownabbey, close to Belfast.

A police subject laptop computer and radio are additionally thought to have been stolen.