The Guardian today reveals the identities of scores of public figures whose confidential details were extracted from supposedly secure databases by a network of private investigators working for news organisations.

The victims include politicians, union leaders, a high court judge, sports personalities, showbusiness stars, journalists and thousands of members of the public.

Repeatedly breaking data protection laws, newspapers and magazines commissioned the network to obtain personal information from social security records, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the police national computer, British Telecom and mobile phone companies.

They also conned hotels, banks, prisons, trade unions and the post office into handing over sensitive information.

The victims' identities are contained in paperwork which has been suppressed since it was seized six years ago from a Hampshire private investigator, Steve Whittamore, during an inquiry known as Operation Motorman, run by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

It has released a statistical summary of the Motorman paperwork but has refused repeatedly to reveal any of the content, with the result that the vast majority of the victims have never been warned that their privacy was compromised.

The Commons select committee on culture, media and sport has sent a strongly worded request to the new information commissioner, Chris Graham, demanding he show them the material and publish a redacted version. Graham is due to appear before the committee on Wednesday.

Now the Guardian has been given access to the material in which Whittamore kept detailed records of more than 17,500 requests from more than 400 journalists even though access to these databases is a criminal offence unless there is a clear public interest to justify it.

The most common target for their efforts was British Telecom. The seized records reveal the names of hundreds of people who asked BT for an ex-directory number to protect their privacy, only for the company to be tricked into revealing the number and often the home address.

Victims include comedians Lenny Henry and John Cleese, former footballer David Seaman, Prince Charles' personal assistant, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, former England cricket captain Michael Atherton, former union leader Arthur Scargill and, in a neat irony, the former editor of the News of the World, Phil Hall. Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones appears to have had 11 different ex-directory phone numbers handed over for his home in Suffolk.

Among the unwitting victims of security breaches are politicians of all three main parties. The Labour minister Peter Hain, Liberal Democrat peer Lord Avebury and former Conservative chairman Chris Patten were all targets of attempts to extract information from BT.

The records show repeated attempts to track down details of Peter Mandelson's home, while Labour MP and former cabinet minister, Peter Kilfoyle, was the target of a successful attempt to find his address in Liverpool. Kilfoyle said: "I think it's outrageous this kind of information can be obtained in this way. I would have thought that the ICO would have let me know. I was a government minister attached to the Cabinet Office at the time."

Former union leaders Sir Gavin Laird and Andy Gilchrist were targets along with court of appeal judge Lord Saville, who chaired the inquiry into the 1972 Bloody Sunday shootings in Northern Ireland.

Journalists including Jeremy Paxman, James Naughtie, Kate Adie and Peter Sissons all had their home addresses and ex-directory phone numbers sold to Fleet Street by the network as did two former BBC director generals, Michael Checkland and Alasdair Milne, and the former publisher of the Daily Express, Lord Hollick.

The material records requests from journalists from the Observer, the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, the Daily and Sunday Express, the Daily and Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, and The Times, Sunday Times, Sun and News of the World, as well as magazines and broadcasters.

The ICO has made no attempt to prosecute news organisations involved. Officials said they feared the news companies would break their budget by hiring expensive QCs, forcing the ICO to do the same.

For taking information from the police computer, Whittamore was charged with two former police officers and a civilian police worker. Before the case came to court, the civilian separately pleaded guilty to stealing police equipment to use in sex games. He was terminally ill and was given a conditional discharge. When all four then came to court, the judge could not impose a more serious punishment and gave them conditional discharges.