In light of the recent fines imposed by the Information Commissioners’ Office I am yet to read any criticisms as to why it imposed the fines on the Hertfordshire County Council and Sheffield-based A4e. In fact what I am hearing is that the penalty did not go far enough.

According to eWeek Europe online, British consumers would be in favour of stronger regulations for organisations that expose the personal data of their customers, with four out of five supporting mandatory breach disclosure laws, according to a survey carried out by OnePoll and published on Thursday by LogRhythm.The survey of 5,000 consumers found that 70 percent wanted more prescriptive breach regulations, with 62 percent supporting the imposition of large fines for companies that expose data. 31% said company directors should be subject to criminal proceedings.

The information security industry as a whole is also in favour of increased regulation and penalties for businesses that are reckless with customer data, confidential data, trade secrets and intellectual property. Apart from the financial gain for the infosec industry, many of the tools available are comparatively a fraction of the cost of cleaning up after a data breach.

Finally, the ICO has the full support of the government who has through the house of parliament been given the mandate to impose fines on any organisation that is in breach of the data protection act.

Above all, the impact of a data breach has far reaching implications which various regulatory bodies and the infosec industry rarely talk about, especially data breaches in the commercial sector is that it impacts job and the long term viability of the business.

The impact a continuous lack of data security over a period of time is that a business becomes less competitive, the market share begins to decline, the shareholder value begins to dwindle, investor confidence begins to wane which results in job cuts in order to reduce costs and increase profitability.

In light of the massive support that the ICO has got, one hopes that it realizes it must protect consumers and privacy of individuals from companies that consider information security as an unnecessary overhead. At the same time it must also protect employees that work for such businesses as data breaches impact jobs.

The ICO should not hesitate to weald the axe when necessary.

Reference: http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/public-calls-for-stronger-data-breach-penalties-14346