ICO has issued just one £1,000 fine to the non-public sector

Human error is now the largest explanation for data breaches, in accordance with the info Commissioner's Office.

A Freedom of knowledge request by ViaSat UK found that the biggest proportion of knowledge breaches were simply all the way down to information being disclosed in error. Of the 730 self-reported data breaches, 281 were the results of information being disclosed in error inside the type of emails sent mistakenly, documents sent to the incorrect people's houses and similar. The most important offender during this situation is local government, whose 88 incidents of human error accounted for 53 per cent of all its self-reported data breaches.

It also found that the general public sector is one of the most commonly fined area, while only 0.3 per cent of self-reported private sector breaches were penalised. It found that despite being accountable for 263 of 730 self-reported data breaches between March 2011 and February 2012, the non-public sector has received only 1 financial penalty in that point: the £1,000 levied against ACS:Law in May 2011.

Chris McIntosh, UK CEO of ViaSat, said: “It is wholly disconcerting that those data breaches which ought to be easily avoidable are actually one of the most commonplace. While the message on data protection might be getting through to the heads of organisations, there isn't a point in having these measures in place if workers don't follow them.

“The indisputable fact that local government organisations are the worst offenders helps explain why the ICO have been imposing such a lot of financial penalties in this sector, perhaps that allows you to get the message through. However, the genuine extent of the issue could also be even greater: while the ICO offers free training and auditing to organisations to assist address these issues, up to now the non-public sector specifically was slow to take them up, meaning that further incidents could be waiting to be discovered.”