ICO FINES COMPANIES FOR DATA BREACHES

You may have heard in the news recently that large fines for British Airways and Marriott Hotels for data protection failure have hit the headlines.

However, small and medium sized companies have also found themselves on the ICO’s radar.  A London estate agency has been fined £80,000 after it left 18,610 customers’ personal details exposed for several years.  The Information Commissioner’s Office has also fined Making It Easy Limited, which is a Clydebank based boiler replacement company.  Making It Easy Limited made 853,796 marketing calls, and the company failed to provide the company name and contact details to the recipient of the calls.  The calls were made to those on the Telephone Preference Service.  The ICO issued an enforcement notice to Making It Easy Limited, ordering it to stop its illegal marketing activities.

In respect of the London estate agency, the Director of Investigations at the ICO said that,  “Companies must accept they have a legal obligation to both protect and keep secure the personal data they are entrusted with.  Where this does not happen, we will investigate and take action”.

Fines are therefore not just reserved for the biggest companies, and it is vital that companies of all sizes have adequate data protection policies and procedures in place.

Here at Chadwick Lawrence we have extensive expertise in our team on advising companies how best to comply with their obligations and, should you be interested in either an initial audit of your current data protection systems or wish us to set up your data protection policies and procedures, then please contact nilso@chadlaw.co.uk or nicholasworsnop@chadlaw.co.uk for further details.