THE Metropolitan Police of London announced today that it is taking security measures following “unauthorised access to the electronic system” of a company it works with.

The company in question maintains records of the names, photographs, salary and rank of police officers and police employees.

The British newspaper The Sun said in an article today that “cybercriminals penetrated the electronic system” of the company that prints identity cards and passports for the London Police, Britain’s largest.

Scotland Yard, for its part, clarified that investigators are working with the company to examine whether there was a security breach.

According to a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police, it is not known when the cyber attack took place nor the number of employees affected by it. However, he added that the company did not have access to employees’ personal information, such as home addresses, phone numbers or financial information.

For the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents more than 30,000 officers, this security gap will cause “incredible concern and anger” among officers.

“This is an incredible security breach that should never have happened,” said Mr Rick Pryor vice president of the Federation.

The announcement comes weeks after Northern Ireland’s police force admitted it had mistakenly published the details of almost all of its staff — around 10,000 officers and other staff — including their last name and first initials, the their rank or even the unit in which they work.

Norfolk and Suffolk Police admitted shortly afterwards that it had mistakenly leaked information on more than 1,200 people, including victims and witnesses to crimes.