IT Governance Blog on IT governance, risk management, compliance and information security.

2010 will see the introduction of penalties unlike any seen before for breaching the Data Protection Act (DPA)!

• Fines of up to £500,000 will be levied by the ICO for serious contraventions of the DPA;
• 25 Monetary Penalty Notices (MPNs) expected to be issued each year by the ICO;
• Prison Sentences will be introduced for deliberate or negligent customer data leaks by individuals within an organisation;
• DPA compliance costs for UK organisation set to rise accordingly.

With the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) going through two government consultations and with new statutory powers to audit government departments, the data protection ragime in the UK has never looked so intimidating.

There is now a narrow window of opportunity for organisations to review their data privacy practices and information governance in order to prepare for what will be a much more hostile regulatory environment in 2010!

Although breaches of information security are not a new phenomenon, the methods used to perpetrate such breaches have changed considerably over the years. Leaking information to non-authorised people has always been an issue but, in the computer age, the speed and effectiveness with which breaches of information security can occur, and the amount of harm potentially caused are disturbing. Typically, also, they favour the perpetrator, not the victim.

A new Pocket Guide from IT Governance Publishing, Information Security Breaches: Avoidance and Treatment based on ISO27001, provides a general discussion of what information security breaches are, how they can be treated, and what ISO27001 offers in that respect, illustrated with details of real-life information security incidents. It aims to serve as a facilitator to widen the horizon of the reader seeking knowledge, or as an introduction for those who are just starting to think about information security.

If you just want to get on with it and ensure your organisation is compliant with the DPA, you will benefit from using our DPA Compliance toolkit. It is cost effective and will save you time.

Another great resource which will help you meet the requirement of the DPA is the Data Protection Compliance in the UK Pocket Guide.

Tags: Data Protection Act, Data Security, DPA, Information Security, ISO 27001, ISO27001, ITGP

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Information Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.