Mat Hayward - stock.adobe.com

An investigative journalist has filed a High Court claim against the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) after police unlawfully obtained communications data in a covert attempt to identify a confidential journalistic source.

A High Court judge has granted the journalist, identified as YZL, anonymity to protect the identity of their sources and because of the threat environment in which the journalist works.

The journalist, who reports on serious crime and paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland, is seeking compensation for misuse of private information, harassment and breaches of the Data Protection Act.

Police in Northern Ireland made applications for communications data belonging to YZL to identify the journalist’s confidential sources in 2014, according to legal documents filed in the High Court, which were first reported by the Irish News.

Olivia O’Kane, a solicitor representing the journalist, told Computer Weekly that YZL would be seeking an injunction to compel the disclosure of all discoverable documents relating to unlawful surveillance against them.

“The journalist has no idea what the PSNI did or the extent of the surveillance, whether any sources were identified or if the information is still held,” O’Kane added.

An independent review by Angus McCullough KC published in 2025 found that police requests for communications data to identify a journalist’s sources, must be justified by an “overriding public interest”.

McCullough found the Code of Practice used by the PSNI from 2007 until 2015 failed to consider whether there was an “overriding public interest”, with the result that authorisations made under the code against journalists “must be considered unlawful”.

The review identified 21 cases involving eight journalists where the PSNI had issued unlawful authorisations to identify journalists’ confidential sources. McCullough’s findings were accepted in writing by the chief constable of the PSNI, Jon Boutcher.

O’Kane said she was bringing the claim in the High Court as the court was able to consider the impact of data protection and privacy breaches, and harassment on journalists.

She said that although the Investigatory Powers Tribunal had awarded journalists modest damages for breaches of human rights law, it was more concerned with assessing the propriety of police conduct than providing redress for victims of unlawful surveillance.

The IPT awarded journalist Vincent Kearney, who worked for the BBC, £20,000 in compensation in July 2026 for human rights breaches after the PSNI and MI5 made multiple attempts to identify his confidential sources.

In 2024, the tribunal ordered the PSNI to pay £4,000 in damages to both Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey for human rights breaches after police admitted unlawfully placing them under surveillance to identify a confidential source for a documentary exposing police collusion.

McCullough found that powers to access communications data, which includes the phone numbers for incoming and outgoing calls, and the time and duration of calls, were “clearly intrusive” when used against journalists and their sources.

The PSNI disclosed material about surveillance operations against journalists to the McCullough Review, without the restrictions of closed evidence procedures in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which should now be disclosed to YZL, said O’Kane.

“In my opinion, everything that was disclosed by the PSNI to McCullough is now material which can be disclosed in high court proceedings,” she said.

Court filings submitted by YZL seek damages for misuse of private information, harassment under the Protection from Harassment (Northern Ireland) Order 1997, and breaches of the Data Protection Act 1988 and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Justice McAlinden granted the anonymity order at a hearing of the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland at a hearing on 18 September 2026. A further hearing is scheduled for early November.

• Police monitored phone data of BBC security editor Brian Rowan to identify confidential sources

  

  By: Bill Goodwin

• MI5 made multiple applications for phone data to identify BBC journalist’s sources

  

  By: Bill Goodwin

• PSNI appoints legal counsel to report on police conduct after McCullough surveillance review

  

  By: Bill Goodwin

• McCullough Review finds PSNI failures but no ‘systemic’ surveillance of journalists

  

  By: Bill Goodwin