Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announces its intention to fine British Airways for a data breach under GDPR

The ICO have just published its Notice of Intent to fine British Airways £183.39 million for infringements of the security principle of GDPR. The breach was disclosed by the airline back in  September 2018.

While the ICO has merely published its intention and no actual fine has been imposed, the fact that the ICO has published a Notice of Intent suggests that it has enough evidence of the breach to keep British Airways on the hook.

The ICO’s investigation found that a variety of information was compromised by poor security arrangements at the company, including login, payment card, and travel booking details, as well as the name and address of customers.

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has now been in force for a while. The regulation increases the responsibility and liability of organisations, with hefty fines having already been handed to Google by French authorities and other giants such as Whatsapp and Facebook facing investigations.

How often should staff take GDPR training?

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data protection authority, spells out that staff must be trained, and regularly. The ICO states:

The GDPR requires you to ensure that anyone acting under your authority with access to personal data does not process that data unless you have instructed them to do so. It is therefore vital that your staff understand the importance of protecting personal data, are familiar with your security policy and put its procedures into practice. You should provide appropriate initial and refresher training.

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GDPR has been law across Europe since 25 May, 2018. It represented a sea-change in how companies must treat data. For any complex regulation, training is one of the best ways to mitigate the risk of things going wrong, and support staff to do it right. Online training is particularly effective when it comes to GDPR training because data protection is about the practical, every-day requirements of keeping data safe and secure.

An ongoing programme of effective GDPR training has many benefits, including:

• Increased job satisfaction amongst employees who know they are following best practice across the board
• Improved processes and procedures inside the organisation
• Reduced maintenance costs
• Improved consumer confidence and trustworthiness
• Better data security and reduced risk of a data breach
• Potential to enhance the reputation of the company as being at the forefront of data protection

Is free will an illusion? Determinist philosophers might think so. Ancient Greek thinkers Leucippus and Democritus were two of the first to theorise that all processes in the world were due to a mechanical interplay at an atomic level, precluding the idea of human beings exercising any kind of free will in a universe operated by deterministic forces.

Aristotle, however, stated that we have the power to do or not to do, and free will can exist when we are aware of the particular circumstances of our actions. However, he still left unanswered the question of defining the choices we make based on causes outside of our control.

On-demand webinar – GDPR Mythbusters 2019

Was the General Data Protection Regulation handed down on tablets of stone? Were its articles intended to be revered, venerated and feared for all time? Or, as many businesses might prefer, is GDPR more of a set of guidelines, good ideas for living a moral life that don’t really matter if they aren’t actually followed?

One could be forgiven for mistaking some GDPR compliance professionals for wandering clerics; preaching the gospel of data protection and warning of the world to come. Yet, like every prophecy, the date of the apocalypse came and went, and nothing much happened… Or did it?

On-demand webinar – GDPR Mythbusters 2019