TalkTalk's appeal against paltry ICO data breach fine thrown out

Re: Not fit for purpose

The point is to make a point, that they were in breach.

The point of appealing was to try and reverse that point.

The fact that the actual amount of money is basically meaningless proves that this is about making quite important points, not about the money.

Talk talk may be pretty awful, but their behaviour in appealing this is perfectly logical.

Re: Seriously?

They went to all the hassle of lawyering up to contest a £1000 fine?

In this case that's the biggest fine the ICO can offer for late notification. However, as a general rule, the fines (or "monetary penalties") that UK regulators impose are decided by a range of factors, including a particular consideration of the track record of offenders. If TT can get out of the £1k fine, it will have a bearing on future penalties for next time they screw up. With the ICO only handing out a theoretical maximum £500k fine for major breaches that still doesn't matter. But under the EU GDPR fines could be very serious from May 2018, and that's probably what is being played for here.

The Remainderers will weep and gnash their teeth and say that Brexit means we won't have any protection under GDPR because it probably won't be enforced during the leaving period. In strict terms that's not proven, but even if that is the case I would suggest that the UK government will not wish to have the weakest data protection regime in the developed world (and a system that prevents data transfer from the EU), so a UK act of similar standards is a near certainty.

So for TalkTalk, appealing the penalty makes economic sense, since even the smallest chance of success is worth hoping for.

Re: Seriously?

"They went to all the hassle of lawyering up to contest a £1000 fine?"

The fine is from the ICO.

The consequent exposure to private legal action is virtually unlimited and the ICO fine makes it uncontestable as the court will see it as proof that they were deficient under the act.

Re: One hour of CEO's billable time

"Where, oh where can I get my Cheap Bullshit Fix??"

Anywhere in the US, In the run up to November 8.

Our version ran until June .. oh, although there's a smaller version going on at the moment ..

That's kind of what gets me in these situations. A company like TalkTalk messes up and spills millions of their customers' personal data across the net. Regardless of whether the company get fined or not for their lack of security, those who are actually hurt by the company's negligence don't see a penny of it. Instead, whenever the victim of a data breach is subsequently the subject of bank / identity fraud, they are usually blamed for having poor security / bad passwords.

A combination of stiffer fines and enforced refunds are definitely in order, I feel.

Re: TalkTalk's appeal against etc etc

"Talk Talk won't be able to restore their reputation by appealing fines for data breaches." You being serious? At this stage in its life cycle,TalkTalk doesn't give a bugger about "reputation". All it cares about is fishing the moron pool to exhaustion. When there's a final irreversible decline in the number of morons signing up for its services, then and only then will it think about 'reputation' -- as in, how much value might be attached to the TalkTalk name, now that the business is up for sale. . .

Re: Is she worth that much?

Of course she is.

In the circumstances, your annual Capitalism training course has been brought forward to September to clarify your uncertainty on this fundamental premise of our society.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Resistance is futile.