The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued £2.2 million in penalties for privacy regulation breaches between 2020 and 2021, according to figures revealed in a recent government report.

The data in the Better Regulation Annual Report 2020-21 was analysed by the Parliament Street think tank, which found that £2.1 million worth of fines were dished out for privacy and electronic communications breaches over the time period.

The ICO also issued £98,800 worth of fines to non-public sector organisations for not registering with the ICO, and a further £25,000 for “other” data protection breaches.

The government department reported 37,000 complaints about data protection issues during 2020-21, with over a third concerning businesses and over 9,500 relating to personal data breaches.

To address some of these issues, the ICO has developed a Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) web hub to make it easier for businesses to act upon data protection advice.

By the end of September 2021, the ICO had responded to 390,000 organisations with the majority being SMEs.

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