Cumbria Police: Officers' names and salaries put online by error

Cumbria Police said it had to contact every staff member once it became aware of the breach

The names and the salaries of every Cumbria Police officer and staff member were accidentally published online, it has emerged.

The force said "human error" led to information being wrongly uploaded to its website on 6 March.

However, personal details, including dates of birth and addresses, were among the details not released.

It comes as the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) mistakenly shared details of 10,000 of its staff.

Cumbria Police said the impact of its breach was "low", but had informed the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Details of the breach were reported to the force on the same day, it said, with the information taken down shortly after.

'Information removed immediately'

A spokesperson for the force said: "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 ICO, which regulates how information is held and used by authorities including councils and police forces across the UK, said no further action was necessary.

Earlier this week an "industrial-scale breach of data" was revealed in Northern Ireland which saw some details of about 10,000 PSNI officers and staff published online for a number of hours.

On Wednesday details of another breach for the PSNI emerged after the theft of documents and a laptop from a car in Newtownabbey in July.

Officers there have described deciding to leave Northern Ireland because they no longer feel safe there.