Penalties for data breaches increase
Justice secretary rubber stamps new penalties of up to £500,000
Big Four firm Deloitte have warned about new data protection rules which
increase the penalty to £500,000.
Justice secretary Jack Straw yesterday gave the final tick for tough new
penalties for personal data security breaches.
Simon McDougall, head of privacy and data protection at Deloitte, said the
new penalties, which come into force in April, will come as no great surprise to
security or privacy professionals.
“What this means in practice is that, from April this year, the Information
Commissioner’s Office (ICO) now has a bigger stick to wield,” he said.
“The ICO will have a wide scope of interpretation when applying its new
regime, as the fines can be levied for breaches of principles, rather than
against detailed technical requirements. The first few fines the ICO levies will
therefore set the tone going forward.”
Further reading:
The
principles of the Data Protection Act in detail
