Greece’s Ministry of Citizen Protection has launched an investigation into how the names of police officers who were selected to staff the newly established division, the “Greek FBI”, were leaked to the press.
The names of 554 police officers who will staff the Greek FBI have been published including their registration numbers.
According to news site Documento, Greek Police had drawn up documents with the transfers of 554 police officers to services in Athens and Thessaloniki, in order to establish the new department.
However, the relevant organizational chart that reached the emails of dozens of services did not take any care to safeguard the employees’ data.
Minister announces the Greek FBI
Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis announced recently the establishment of a new and very important institution he named the Greek FBI.
He said that this is a service the country needs to fight organized crime, drugs, human trafficking, extortion, and smuggling that will operate along the lines of the original FBI.
“The new service, which consists of very specialized, capable police officers, will finally become the vanguard in our country for dealing with, managing and fighting organized crime,” Chrysochoidis said speaking to public broadcaster ERT.
“I believe in the abilities of these police officers, who together with good planning and the use of new technology will fulfill their mission,” he added.
Police officers angry at Greek FBI leak
“People don’t understand that with the publication of these names and their details, there is a danger even for their lives,” the press representative of the Greek Police, Constantia Dimoglidou, told ANT1 TV on Thursday.
She noted that “these people are called upon from now on to manage various cases of organized crime, very dangerous criminals. It is unacceptable to make it public.”
“The silence of the Leadership has been deafening until now,” stressed the Union of Police Employees of Athens in a statement issued immediately after the leak, criticizing the Ministry’s silence on this grave issue.
“We, as the Union of Police Employees of Athens, we denounce the publication-leakage of personal information of hundreds of our colleagues from a certain website”, the statement said adding:
“We do not care at all if it is a mistake or if some people considered the publication as ‘exclusive information’, all that concerns us is the conclusion, since the exact details of police officers of a newly established Service which in the future will play an important role in the fight of crime, became accessible to everyone.”
In cooperation with the union’s legal department “we are already processing the recourse to the appropriate legal actions to protect our members,” the statement stressed.
