A story in today’s Belfast Telegraph reminds us that employee snooping on personal information is not always just out of curiosity or for purposes of ID theft:
A victims campaigner has launched legal proceedings against the Chief Constable and two loyalist bandsmen over the gathering of information on Catholics from a police database.
Lawyers for Mark Thompson, director of the Relatives for Justice group, confirmed writs have been served in his High Court claim for damages.
Mr Thompson is suing the Police Service and Co Antrim men Aaron Hill (24) and Darren Richardson (31) who were both convicted of collecting information likely to be useful to terrorists.
Hill, a former PSNI civilian member of staff from Mainebank, Randalstown, admitted carrying out checks on the police computer system for more than two years before being detected.
It was estimated that around 100 names were searched, with nearly 70 people warned to step up their personal security because their details had been accessed.
Read more in the Belfast Telegraph. PSNI is the Police Service of Northern Ireland.