This morning brings word that UK phone retailers Carphone Warehouse and Talk Talk will get a nice steaming hot bowl of justice served up if they keep losing data. And the company spin response?
From FT.com:
Carphone Warehouse said it was aware that a “very small number†of its customers had raised concerns with the ICO. The company added that it took “immediate steps†to resolve the problems and to ensure it was fully compliant with the act.
The Data Protection Act…of 1998. Hey, whats a decade between friends? I mean if it was only a small number…sorry, I just threw up a little. C’mon what is this crap about a “very small number”? One loss is one too many.
The case is one of a growing number of “frankly horrifying†data protection breaches identified by Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, in private and public organisations, including the loss of 25m people’s personal data by Revenue and Customs last year.
The government has said it wants to give the ICO greater powers to inspect and audit Whitehall departments, but the watchdog is pressing for the approach to be extended to include the rest of the public sector and the private sector.
The commissioner is also pressing for powers to allow him to launch prosecutions immediately in cases that involve reckless breaches of data protection rules. Under existing rules, he has to issue a warning first and has no powers to impose on-the-spot fines.
Read on.
[tags]Data Loss, Privacy, Data Protection, Data Protection Act[/tags]
