Leave.EU and Banks’ firm fined for data breaches
PET OWNERS in the UK could be forced to get their animals vaccinated up to four months before they travel to Europe in the wake of a no-deal Brexit.
Dog and cat owners are being advised to speak to a vet as soon as possible if they want to take their pet on holiday after March.
Government officials have issued the advice on the basis of a no-deal scenario and say pet owners will have to start preparations by the end of this month if they intend on travelling to the EU.
Pet owners in Northern Ireland could be forced to pay hundreds of pounds in veterinary fees and wait up to four months for paperwork before they can cross the border to the Republic with their dog.
If officials fail to reach an agreement by March, animals travelling to the EU will need rabies vaccinations and a blood sample taken 30 days prior to arrival. The sample, taken one month after the jab, is sent to a laboratory – a process that takes three months to complete before the pet will be allowed to travel.
is agreed and it will be subject to securing an acceptable full future framework.”
The fragility of negotiations over the backstop were highlighted in Ireland, where Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was accused in the Dublin Parliament of committing a “cock-up” when he told Mrs May on Monday he was ready to consider a mechanism, so long as it did not give the UK unilateral powers to quit.
But he denied making a concession to UK demands for any backstop to be temporary, saying: “There can be no expiry date and there can be no unilateral exit clause, and if it were to be either of those things, the backstop would not be worth the paper it was written on.” THE BREXIT campaign group founded by businessman Arron Banks and an insurance company he owns were yesterday warned they face fines totalling £135,000 for data protection breaches.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said it had issued “notices of intent” to Leave.EU and Eldon Insurance for “serious breaches” of Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations.
It followed the discovery of evidence that some Eldon customers’ personal data had been used by Leave.EU to unlawfully distribute political marketing messages.
It included the sending of almost 330,000 emails to customers of Eldon Insurance – trading as GoSkippy – containing a Leave. EU newsletter, for which the campaign group faces a £15,000 fine.
The ICO also warned that Leave.EU and the insurance company face fines of £60,000 each in relation to the sending of more than one million emails to Leave. EU subscribers which included GoSkippy marketing material.
The details were released as the Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, was presenting the ICO’s findings to MPs at the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
In its final report on the use of data analytics in political campaigning, the ICO also disclosed that it would have issued Cambridge Analytica – the company at the centre of the Facebook data breach – with a “substantial fine” if it had not gone into administration.
Leave.EU criticised the ICO, accusing it of acting “in collusion” with the committee to discredit Brexit. Eldon Insurance said that it had only received the “notice of intent” from the ICO at 4pm on Monday and would be making representations concerning its findings.
The finding comes after the National Crime Agency opened an investigation into Mr Banks for “suspected criminal offences” over £8m in campaign funding during the referendum.