Absent information commissioner under fire

The information commissioner has come under attack after seemingly slashing fines for high-profile data breaches and leaving the country for months during a time of crisis.

British Airways had been facing a fine of £183 million for a 2018 loss of credit card rd and personal details ls of 500,000 customers. stomers. Yet, more than han year after the announcement of the fine, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has again postponed action and it is increasingly likely BA will pay only 10% of the he original penalty. In its Q2 results filed with the he London Stock Exchange, BA’s parent company IAG said it was setting aside only €22 million (£20 million) to cover the fine.

“The exceptional charge of €22 million represents management’s best estimate of the amount of any penalty issued by the ICO in the UK relating to the theft of customer data at British Airways in 2018,” the group said. “The process is ongoing and no final penalty notice has been issued.”

Marriott, meanwhile, had been fined £99 million for its breach, but has also received another postponement for further negotiations. The company’s financial records explain that “based on the ongoing proceeding involving the

ICO, the company also reduced to $65 million (£49.3 million) the fine proposed in relation to the security incident”.

Neither the companies nor the ICO are commenting further on the proceedings.

All this comes as the information commissioner is facing personal criticism for spending months working from her home in Canada. In the midst of concerns over the fines and “track and trace” privacy, Elizabeth Denham ( left) was in Canada from mid-June to early September, the ICO confirmed.

Although the ICO insisted that Denham had been continuing with her duties, she came under fire, with Heather Burns of the Coalition for a Digital Economy stating that: “We are in a national crisis, and she has abandoned her post. She must resign.”