FSA fines N&P £1.4 million and agrees £50 million for customers and FSCS

[charitynjw]

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Library/...2011/037.shtml

FSA/PN/037/2011
18 April 2011
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined Norwich and Peterborough Building Society (N&P) £1.4 million for failing to give its customers suitable advice in relation to the sale of Keydata products.
N&P will make available ex gratia payments to all customers to ensure they do not lose out as a result of their investment, amounting to approximately £51 million in total.

[calamity jane]

Info Watchdog Hands Out Just Four Fines In Year

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20110420/...i-45dbed5.html

(c) Sky News 2011


Just four fines have been handed out by the information watchdog since it began operating last year, new figures have revealed.
Some 2,565 possible breaches of the Data Protection Act have been reported to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) but only 36 have resulted in any action - and just four have led to civil penalties.
The maximum penalty for a single offence is £500,000 - although the biggest to date has been £100,000. In all, organisations have been fined a total of £310,000.
The £100,000 penalty was handed to Hertfordshire County Council in November last year after it accidentally faxed highly sensitive information about cases involving child sex abuse and care proceedings to the wrong recipients on two occasions.
In February, Ealing Council was fined £80,000 and Hounslow Council was fined £70,000 after a private firm employed by both authorities lost two laptops containing the details of around 1,700 people.
Also in November employment services company A4e was fined £60,000 over the theft of a laptop containing personal information of about 24,000 people.
The figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act to encryption firm ViaSat, also show that the ICO has taken action against seven private sector organisations, but 29 in the public sector.
Chris McIntosh, the firm's chief executive, said: "The ICO has a tremendous amount of leeway in the penalties it levies and so far doesn't seem to be applying this in either direction.
"The ICO has stated that the embarrassment and poor image of a fine will act as a deterrent and an incentive to improve an organisation's grasp of the Data Protection Act.
"However, if fines are rare and well below the maximum allowed limit, their value as a deterrent drops.
"Organisations will view the rarity of a fine and the associated negative publicity the same way they have viewed the threat of a data breach itself: an event that only happens to other people."






CJ