PSNI data breach: Two men arrested under the Terrorism Act

The information was accidentally shared past period and included the surname and initials of 10,000 PSNI employees.

Police said the men, aged 21 and 22, had been arrested nether the Terrorism Act aft a hunt successful Portadown, County Armagh, connected Saturday.

The brace are presently being questioned astatine Musgrave constabulary presumption successful Belfast.

Dt Ch Insp Avine Kelly said the PSNI was moving to found who possessed accusation related to the information breach.

"We volition instrumentality enactment to guarantee that immoderate criminality identified is dealt with robustly to support communities, and our officers and unit who service them, safe."

On 8 August, employees' details were mistakenly published online aft being released by the PSNI successful effect to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request.

They were taken down from a website astatine the PSNI's absorption a abbreviated clip later.

Police person confirmed the database is successful the hands of dissident republicans, amongst others.

It was 1 of 3 abstracted PSNI information breach incidents being examined by police.

On 6 July, successful an unrelated incident, a police-issue laptop and radio, arsenic good arsenic a papers containing the names of much than 200 staff, were stolen from a backstage conveyance successful Newtownabbey, County Antrim.

In different incident, connected Thursday 17 August, a PSNI laptop and a constabulary officer's notebook fell from the extortion of a moving car connected the M2 successful Belfast.