About 200 police officers and staff were not informed about the theft of devices and documents with data potentially affecting them for almost a month, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has confirmed.
A police-issued laptop, radio and documents were stolen on 6 July from the car which is understood to belong to a superintendent.
The theft from a car parked in Newtownabbey emerged after news of a large data breach during which some details of 10,000 officers and staff including their surname, rank or grade and location were mistakenly published online for a number of hours on Tuesday.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland’s information security unit was informed on 27 July about the theft. After investigations, the Information Commissioners’ Officer was informed on 31 July, and officers and staff were informed on 4 August.
The assistant chief constable Chris Todd said in a statement on Saturday they believe the laptop and radio were deactivated “shortly afterwards”.
“We are confident no data has been lost from these devices and they are of no use to any third party,” he said.
“Our information security unit were informed on 27 July. As there was a delay, our information security unit had to conduct their own inquiries to be clear on what accurate information could be conveyed to the Information Commissioner’s Office who were then informed on 31 July.
“The precise nature of the missing data had to be confirmed before we could inform our officers and staff on 4 August. We have worked with our data protection officer and sought legal advice and guidance to ensure the information we provided to our employees was accurate.”
Earlier this week, PSNI chief constable Simon Byrne said he was aware of claims that dissident republicans were in possession of information from the breach, but stressed that the claim has not been verified.
Scores of officers have expressed concern for their safety in Northern Ireland, where police are under threat from terrorists with the current level assessed as severe, meaning an attack is highly likely.
A threat management assessment group has been set up by the PSNI for those concerned about risk. It had had 1,200 referrals by Friday evening.
Byrne cut short a family holiday last week to return to Belfast to answer questions about the data breach. He said on Thursday he was “deeply sorry” about an “industrial-scale breach of data”.
The data was published in response to a freedom of information request at about 2.30pm, the PSNI said.
During the Troubles, police officers in Northern Ireland were regularly attacked by republican paramilitary groups. Members of the PSNI have also been targeted in gun and bomb attacks in the years since the Good Friday agreement.
In February, senior PSNI officer DCI John Caldwell suffered life-changing injuries when he was shot after coaching a youth football team in Omagh in County Tyrone.
PA Media contributed to this report
