One in five small UK firms have likely breached the Data Protection Act, while half have probably done so several times, according to a new survey.
National standards body the BSI found 18 per cent of the 500 small and medium businesses (SMBs) polled didn't know one way or another if they were compliant with the act.
Not surprisingly then, the survey also suggested 65 per cent didn't bother to train staff about data protection, while half had no single person in charge of the issue. And 15 per cent said their processes likely don't meet the act, but five per cent share data regardless.
Mike Low, director of standards for BSI, said: "These organisations are handling vast amounts of personal information on a daily basis and while it is encouraging that some already have appropriate data protection measures in place this survey clearly shows that there is still a long way to go."
Despite the importance of data protection and the many high profile data breaches some 18 per cent of SMBs said keeping such information safe was not a majory priority given the failing economy. The survey was released to mark the launch of a new data management standard from the BSI.
Click here to read the 11 lessons companies should learn about data breaches.
-
Should AI PCs be part of your next hardware refresh?AI PCs are fast becoming a business staple and a surefire way to future-proof your business
-
Westcon-Comstor and Vectra AI launch brace of new channel initiativesNews Westcon-Comstor and Vectra AI have announced the launch of two new channel growth initiatives focused on the managed security service provider (MSSP) space and AWS Marketplace.
-
India’s new data protection bill continues to “facilitate state surveillance”News Although data localisation requirements have now been removed, it’s down to the Indian government to select which countries data is allowed to be sent to
-
LinkedIn denies data breach that reportedly exposed 700 million user recordsNews Report claims 'breach' led to profiles belonging to 92% of LinkedIn users being put up for sale on a popular hacker forum
-
Privacy campaigners rally against "illegal" Clearview AI data scrapingNews The notorious facial recognition firm claims to have a database of more than three billion images scraped from social media sites
-
Germany bans Facebook from using WhatsApp data over GDPR concernsNews Hamburg's data protection commissioner issues three-month ban days before the app's new privacy policy rolls out
-
Facebook faces 'mass action' lawsuit over data breachNews Digital Rights Ireland is urging European Facebook users who have been affected to sign up
-
Irish data watchdog to investigate Facebook data leakNews The regulator believes that Facebook may have infringed ‘one or more’ GDPR provisions following apparent leak of 533 million user records
-
EU might force tech giants to share data with smaller rivalsNews The Digital Services Act draft also suggests that firms may be banned from giving their own services preferential treatment
-
Irish data watchdog orders Facebook to halt EU user data transfers to the USNews Nick Clegg suggests cancelling its transfer mechanism could cause chaos for businesses and the global economy
