The National Police Corps of the Netherlands discovered a data breach on 26 September 2024 that exposed the names, email addresses, and phone numbers of nearly 63,000 people connected to the force. The affected population extended beyond sworn officers to include janitors and front-desk employees; in some cases, additional information was also compromised. The scale of the exposure created a security risk for personnel whose work can make them targets, while demonstrating that internal police systems failed to adequately protect basic identifying data.
Justice and Security Minister David van Weel disclosed the incident to the Dutch Parliament. Police chief Janny Knol publicly acknowledged the failure, saying she was shocked that colleagues' data had not been safe and emphasizing that personnel must feel secure inside the organization in order to provide safety outside it. In October 2024, the Dutch government announced that it suspected hackers working for a foreign government were responsible, but the supplied account does not establish attribution or identify the state involved. The breach therefore remains a confirmed privacy and institutional-security failure, with foreign-state involvement described only as a government suspicion.
