Fines fly following airline cyber breach
The news that British Airways is facing a fine of £184m after personal data of some 500,000 customers was harvested by cyber criminals shows the tough stance of the UK's data regulator following the introduction of new EU data protection laws last year.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has seen stricter operating boundaries for businesses processing personally identifiable information about individuals, and it also ushered in extended powers for> Under the previous regime, the maximum penalty for>
For British Airways, unwitting customers were diverted from the real BA website to a fraudulent site, but even though the breach was not on their website, the investigation by the ICO found poor security arrangements by BA had compromised customer data, including log in and payment details, as well as names and addresses.
"It's up to BA to make representations to the regulator over the findings to see if they can demonstrate why the proposed fine should be reduced," explained>
The aim of GDPR was to harmonise> It introduced a statutory obligation to notify the regulator of any breach which placed an individual's personally identifiable information at risk and the ICO has recorded more than 40,000>
The head of the ICO, Elizabeth Denham, has urged organisations to face up to the challenge and move beyond baseline compliance to accountability, with evidenced understanding of the risks to individuals in the way they process data, and focused attention on how to mitigate those risks.
"It's a fast-changing environment," added Jon. "Just because you were confident about compliance when GDPR was introduced in 2018, doesn't mean you can ignore the new guidance that's coming through. Also, you need to take account of enforcement actions, to see where problems may arise.
"And although we still don't know what's happening over Brexit, what we do know is that whatever happens on that front, GDPR compliance will continue to be the minimum standard required of UK companies who wish to do business across Europe."
Reviewing your GDPR compliance
- Check your policies and procedures
Stress test your processes on a regular basis, and review whether policies are clear and easily followed. If not, they should be revised and clarified. If the way you operate has changed, this could impact GDPR compliance, and poxqlicies need to be regularly updated to reflect recent changes, such as the guidance on transparency and consent from the European Data Protection Board.
- GDPR refresher training
Regular enactments of mock data breaches can help keep GDPR at the forefront for staff, as well as identifying where changes may be needed. Whenever policies need to be updated, make sure refresher training is conducted with relevant staff, and with detailed development training for any staff who are frontline on data management. Regular training is one of the things that the regulator will be looking for, if anything does go wrong.
- Reporting
Staff should be encouraged to seek out, recognise and report data incidents, so make sure you have the right culture that encourages open reporting. The regulator wants to see prompt identification and reporting, as the longer it takes to identify a possible data breach, the more likely that a situation will mushroom out of control.
- Third party relationships
If you transfer personal data through third parties, such as suppliers, or transfer it outside the EU for any reason, it's important that all related contracts and processes comply with GDPR requirements.
- Data Protection Impact Assessments
Make sure you understand the circumstances in which you are required to conduct Data Protection Impact Assessments. These are key to the GDPR philosophy of designing systems with privacy at their heart and should be undertaken whenever data processing could result in a high risk to individual rights and freedoms. Guidance on the ICO website sets this out in detail.