The ICO exists to empower you through information.

Enforcement action

37 in total

The Electoral Commission

30 July 2024, Reprimands, Central government

Reprimand issued to the Electoral Commission in respect of Articles 5(1)(f) and 32(1)(b). Between 24 August 2021 and 27 October 2022, a threat actor had access to the Electoral Commission’s systems and was able to access personal data held as part of the Electoral Register. This incident impacted approximately 40,000,000 individuals, and the initial access was gained via several unpatched software vulnerabilities. The investigation highlighted that appropriate technical and organisational measures were not in place at the time of the breach.

London Borough of Hackney

05 July 2024, Reprimands, Local government

The Information Commissioner’s Office has issued the London Borough of Hackey with a reprimand following a cyber-attack in 2020 that led to hackers gaining access to and encrypting 440,000 files, affecting at least 280,000 residents and other individuals including staff.

University Hospital of Southampton NHS Foundation Trust

05 April 2024, Reprimands, Health

A reprimand is being issued to University Hospital of Southampton NHS Foundation Trust as they have only responded to 59% of incoming SARs within the statutory timeframe during the period of 01 August 2022 to 01 July 2023.

Home Office

21 March 2024, Enforcement notices, Central government

An enforcement notice and a warning have been issued to the Home Office for failing to assess the privacy risks posed by the electronic monitoring of people arriving in the UK by unauthorised means. The ICO has been in discussion with the Home Office regarding its pilot to place ankle tags on, and track the GPS location of, up to 600 migrants who arrived in the UK and were on immigration bail. Although the pilot ended in December 2023, the Home Office has retained the GPS location data collected by the tags and will continue to be able to access and use that data including sharing it with other third-party organisations. The enforcement notice orders the Home Office to update its internal policies, access guidance and privacy information in relation to the data retained from the pilot. The warning issued also states that any future processing on the same basis will be in breach of data protection law and will attract enforcement action.

Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC)

13 March 2024, Reprimands, Local government

Within the London.gov.uk website, there was a webform to contact the London Victims’ Commissioner as well as other webforms. Between 11-14 November 2022, a member of GLA intended to give four members of MOPAC permission to the webforms. However, instead of granting permission to the four members of MOPAC, they made two web forms public. On 23 February 2023 MOPAC were made aware by a member of the public that it was possible for users to click a button that would enable users to access information on every query that had been submitted via the form. 394 people were later notified of the breach due to the nature of the personal data that was made publicly accessible on the forms.

Ministry of Defence

26 February 2024, Monetary penalties, Central government

The MOD sent emails inadvertently using the “To” field rather than the “BCC” field. 265 unique email addresses were disclosed in breach of GDPR Article 5(1)(f). The MOD were fined £350,000.

South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust

20 December 2023, Reprimands, Health

The reprimand was issued as the South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust (the Trust) was found to have not ensured that its staff were fully trained and prepared to deal with correspondence that was particularly sensitive, and which had been referred to the Trust via legitimate but unusual channels. Staff were not provided with appropriate guidance to ensure that they could deal with sensitive correspondence in every situation. The effect of the infringement was that significant distress was caused to the family of a child patient at a time that was already particularly traumatic for the family.

Charnwood Borough Council

29 November 2023, Reprimands, Local government

Reprimand issued for the disclosure of the new address of the data subject to an ex-partner who was the alleged perpetrator of domestic abuse against the data subject. This caused significant distress to the data subject and has the potential to result in actual harm. In addition, the investigation highlighted that the process to make address changes was not properly communicated to the data subject, and that there was an absence of a written and well communicated process for dealing with correspondence in these sensitive circumstances for staff to use. In addition, the Council had not ensured that all members of staff involved in this incident had received data protection training in the twelve months prior to the incident.

NHS Fife

23 November 2023, Reprimands, Health

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued a reprimand to NHS Fife, after an unauthorised individual was able to enter a ward and access the personal information of 14 patients.

University Hospital of Derby and Burton NHS Trust (UHDB)

30 October 2023, Reprimands, Health

UHDB failed to have adequate processes in place, especially when processing special category data, which resulted in referrals for out-patients’ appointments not being processed in a timely manner. In some cases, this led to delays of up to two years before medical treatment was arranged.

Gloucester City Council

01 September 2023, Reprimands, Local government

The Information Commissioner (the Commissioner) issues a reprimand to Gloucester City Council in respect of infringements of Article 32(1)b, Article 32(1)c and Article 32(1)d of the UK GDPR. Gloucester City Council failed to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to properly secure their systems.

London Borough of Lewisham

16 August 2023, Reprimands, Local government

During the period of 3 January 2022 to 3 January 2023, 35% of subject access requests (SARs) that London Borough of Lewisham received were not responded to within the statutory deadlines of one and three months. A reprimand has therefore been issued to London Borough of Lewisham in relation to infringements of Article 12(3) and Article 15(1) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

NHS Lanarkshire

31 July 2023, Reprimands, Health

The Information Commissioner (the Commissioner) issues a reprimand to NHS Lanarkshire in accordance with Article 58 (2)(b) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) for the sharing of personal data of patients via unauthorised means and secondly, a disclosure of personal data.

Executive Office

21 July 2023, Reprimands, Central government

On 22 May 2020, the Interim Advocate’s Office sent a newsletter by email to 251 subscribers on its mailing list using the ‘To’ field. The email addresses of the recipients were visible to all who received the email.

The Patient and Client Council

19 July 2023, Reprimands, Health

A reprimand has been issued to The Patient and Client Council in relation to infringements of Article 5 (1)(f) and Article 32 (1) of the UK GDPR. The infringements were identified following an investigation into the disclosure of special category due to an email sent to 15 individuals using carbon copy (CC) rather than blind carbon copy (BCC).

Shropshire Council

09 May 2023, Enforcement notices, Local government

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued an enforcement notice to Shropshire Council for its poor handling of requests made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000.

Norfolk County Council

05 May 2023, Reprimands, Local government

Norfolk County Council has only responded to 260 out of 511 SARs it received within the statutory timescales from 6 April 2021 to 6 April 2022.

Plymouth City Council

28 April 2023, Reprimands, Local government

A reprimand has been issued to Plymouth City Council in relation to the infringements of Article 12 (3) and Article 15 of the UK GDPR. This case forms part of the ICO’s wider work into Subject Access Request compliance.

Ministry of Justice

27 April 2023, Reprimands, Central government

14 bags of confidential waste were found in an unsecured holding area in the prison, which both prisoners and staff had access to.

University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust

25 April 2023, Reprimands, Health

The Information Commissioner (the Commissioner) issues a reprimand to University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust) in accordance with Article 58(2)(b) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation in respect of certain infringements of the UK GDPR.

London Borough of Lewisham

21 March 2023, Enforcement notices, Local government

The London Borough of Lewisham has been served with an Enforcement Notice as a result of the evidence seen by the Commissioner about its performance in relation to its statutory duties under the Freedom of information Act (FOIA).

NHS Highland

09 March 2023, Reprimands, Health

A formal reprimand has been issued to NHS Highland, which emailed 37 people likely to be accessing HIV services, inadvertently using CC (carbon copy) instead of BCC (blind carbon copy). The error meant recipients of the email could see the personal email addresses of other people receiving the email, with one person confirming they recognised four other individuals, one of whom was a previous sexual partner.

University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust

07 March 2023, Reprimands, Health

Patient records were saved on to an Electronic Document Viewing System. The Trust decided to terminate the use of this system and the records on it were downloaded prior to allowing the system licence to expire. However this download was not fully successful but this was not investigated prior to the licence expiry and therefore a number of records became inaccessible and some permanently lost.

NHS Blood and Transplant

03 March 2023, Reprimands, Health

The Commissioner has decided to issue NHSBT with a reprimand in accordance with Article 58 of the GDPR, after they inadvertently released untested development code into a live system for matching transplant list patients with donated organs in August 2019.

Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

10 November 2022, Reprimands, Health

Hysteroscopy scans were saved on to a series of three USB sticks over a period of nine years from May 2013 until the remaining two encrypted USB sticks became inaccessible on 5 April 2018. It is unknown whether this inaccessibility was as a result of a technical failure of the USBs or human error from inputting the wrong password.