A man has been arrested by Greek police on suspicion of stealing the personal data of some two-thirds of the entire population there. 

The 35-year-old computer programmer is also suspected of attempting to sell the 9 million files containing ID card data, addresses tax and licence plate numbers. 

The Greek population is 11 million. 

Court appearence later

The investigation is now trying to establish whether the man hacked into government servers or if he had an accomplice. 

He is expected to appear in court later tonight. 

Police spokesman Christos Manouras told reporters "We are investigating what the source of the data was and how they were used by the man arrested and also the possibility of him providing them to someone else".

The files were discovered after police raided his home.

It is believed the investigation began after an employee at the data protection authority notified police that someone appeared to have a large number of digital files.