The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) posted a blog article outlining its new approach to public sector enforcement. The significant change is that the ICO will now use its discretion to reduce the monetary penalty amount or apply a different regulatory action, such as warnings, reprimands and enforcement notices. Monetary penalties will now only be issued for more serious violations. Earlier in the month, the ICO confirmed it will publish all reprimands from now on.
The ICO published an open letter from Information Commissioner John Edwards to public authorities informing them of the changes. Mr Edwards points out that the new approach facilitates an era of partnership where the ICO works more closely with public sector organisations in the hope it will help prevent harms from occurring in the first place. Instances of non-compliance will still be called out and met by robust enforcement action, but there will be less emphasis on awarding fines. Mr Edwards says, "I am not convinced large fines on their own are as effective a deterrent within the public sector. They do not impact shareholders or individual directors in the same way as they do in the private sector but come directly from the budget for the provision of services." Instead, the focus will be on raising data protection standards across the board.
Mr Edwards also notes he has received commitments from the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to create a "cross-Whitehall senior leadership group to encourage compliance with high data protection standards" in line with the proposals outlined in the National Data Strategy.
The new approach to public sector enforcement is one of the initiatives that the ICO will set out in its 3-year strategic ICO25 plan on 14 July.
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