Eight people have cited a major data breach by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) as one of their reasons for leaving the service, the deputy chief constable has said.

The personal details of nearly 10,000 officers and staff were inadvertently leaked last August in an incident that left many fearing for their safety.

It came in the form of a spreadsheet released as part of a Freedom of Information request which contained hidden data with the initials, names, rank and role of all 9,483 PSNI officers and staff.

Police later said the information had reached the hands of dissident republicans.

In the wake of the leak, some officers chose to move homes, cut off contact with family members and change daily routines.

The PSNI has been fined £750,000 for a serious data breach by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Meanwhile, thousands of officers and staff are launching legal action against the PSNI for the breach.

Chief Constable Jon Boutcher told the Northern Ireland Policing Committee on Thursday that very few organizations could or would have responded with the swift and robust measures put in place by the PSNI to devalue and recover information.

Acting Deputy Chief Constable Chris Todd updated the board on progress on recommendations made following the breach.

He said around 9,500 colleagues were directly affected and senior officers immediately worked to remove data from the internet and worked late into the night to provide support and security to those affected.

In the coming weeks and months, he said 4,000 colleagues asked for support, special arrangements had to be made for 75 and 90 per cent of the workforce accepted a universal offer of £500 for the necessary security measures.

He added that the impact on officers and staff should not be underestimated.

“We know from exit interviews that there are at least eight people in the organization who referenced the impact of the data breach when they decided to leave the organization,” he said.

Sinn Fein MP Gerry Kelly wondered if the number could be higher.

Mr. Todd replied: “There are eight who have specifically said so.

“So when someone retires or resigns, they are invited to have an exit interview. Not everyone agrees with that or accepts that or wants that, so there might be some people who didn’t have exit interviews because they didn’t want to have an exit interview and didn’t get a chance to tell us exactly why, so there might be others, but there are definitely eight who had an exit interview who said “part of the reason we left is because of the impact of the data breach,” he said .

Mr Todd also outlined other actions such as devaluing the leaked data to make it useless to those who would want to cause harm, including changing service numbers.

He said there were 967 attempts to access data traced to 221 IP addresses, which were investigated with the help of agencies such as the NCA and GCHQ, as well as international agencies such as the FBI.

The ICO said it was the most significant data breach in UK police history, not only because of the data but also the context of Northern Ireland and the threat to officers.

It made 37 recommendations, of which Mr Todd said 18 were now complete, good progress had been made on eight, some progress had been made on ten and one had not been progressed.

Mr Todd said what had not been progressed was replacing the system, which he said was due to financial constraints.