ICO issues largest ever fine: £350,000

Prodial Ltd, a lead generation firm, has been fined a record breaking £350,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The company had made 46 million automated nuisance calls, according to the ICO.

Around 1,000 consumers complained to the ICO to report the automated nuisance calls relating to PPI claims. PPI claims continues to be a key driver of nuisance calls.

Christopher Graham, Information Commissioner, warned at Data Protection 2016 – the DMA’s own data protection policy summit – that a so called ‘mega Monday’ of enforcement action was on the way.

The ICO has an estimated £1,000,000 of fines to be issued before the end of this financial year and £350,000 has been issued to Prodial Ltd. £650,000 remains to be issued so there more than likely be other substantial fines before the end of this financial year.

Remember, the GDPR will dramatically increase the level of fines the ICO can issue. The worst offences under the GDPR are punishable by a fine of up to €20 million or 4% of global turnover. Christopher Graham referred to the fines as "eye-watering" and said, "The sky’s the limit for enforcement. This is getting serious."