DISSIDENT republicans claim to have WhatsApps with personal details of police officers, Northern Ireland’s top cop says.
Around 10,000 names were exposed in a data breach.
Chief Constable Simon Byrne cut short a family holiday to fly back to Belfast for an emergency meeting of the policing board.
He said: “An early worst case scenario we have been dealing with is third parties would attempt to get this data to intimidate, corrupt or cause harm to officers and staff.
“We are now aware that dissident republicans claim to be in possession of some of this information circulating on WhatsApp, and as we speak we are advising officers and staff about how to deal with that and any further risk that they face.”