Another police force admits data breach after staff salaries published

Another police force has admitted a data breach after the names and salaries of all its staff were accidentally published online.

Cumbria Police said that on March 6 it found out information about pay and allowances had been uploaded on its website following a “human error”.

The force’s admission comes after an “industrial scale breach of data” in Northern Ireland this week which saw some details of around 10,000 officers and staff published online for a number of hours.

Details of another breach with the theft of documents and a laptop from a car in Newtownabbey in July also emerged on Wednesday.

Cumbria Police said the impact of the breach was “low”, but the force had to contact every person affected.

It said: “Cumbria Constabulary became aware of a data breach on Monday March 6 2023 where information about the pay and allowances of every police officer and police staff roles as at March 31 2022 was uploaded to the Constabulary’s website, which was a human error.

“The pay and allowance data also included names and position, however, it did not contain information about where the posts were deployed from or personal details such as date of birth and address.

“This information was removed immediately after the breach was identified.

“Cumbria constabulary immediately contacted every affected person about the data breach, explaining that the impact of this breach was low and the measures the constabulary had put in place to manage the breach and to prevent it happening again.”

The breach was referred to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which said no further action was necessary.