Data breach reports up FOUR times under GDPR – ICO

Posted 5 years ago

A recent report from the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) has uncovered that the number of data breach reports it received over the past 12 months has quadrupled from the year before, following the introduction of the GDPR last May.

The ICO said it had received some 14,072 breach notifications, up from 3,311 during the year ending April 2018.

There have been no fines imposed on organisations that have breached the new regulations, BUT the ICO said that the first of the penalties were ‘coming’. Fines under the data protection law are severe – 4% of annual turnover or fines of up to 20 million euros, whichever is greater.

Whilst the ICO hasn’t handed out any fines yet, France’s data protection authority (CNIL) hit Google with a £44m fine in January for GDPR breaches.

Public Awareness at an ‘all-time high’

Public awareness of data protection rights is at an all-time high, the first large-scale loss or misuse of individuals’ data under GDPR will be an important test case for the ICO, which will show us how far the regulator is prepared to go in using its new powers – this is a key area to watch

The European Data Protection Board

These latest statistics from the ICO show that whilst no organisations have been punished for breaches, public awareness under the GDPR has risen dramatically.

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