Accountants get criminal conviction for failing to comply with Data Protection Act

Alex has already posted some useful information about the Data Protection Act on the blog already.

One of the requirements under the Data Protection Act is that people and organisations that process personal data about others must register what they do by notifying the Information Commissioner. Processing personal data without a notification is, generally, a criminal offence that can attach personal liablity to employeers and officers of a business too.

The Information Commissioner last issued a press release about successful convictions of an accountant's business.

A couple of interesting things to note here:

• The company pleaded guilty as did three of the company's officers. They all got criminal convictions and had to pay fines in the £200 to £300 bracket and contributions to the legal costs. The point is that the individuals got criminal records, which is never a good thing.
• The Information Commissioner gave them every opportunity to sort things out first: the investigator phoned, visited and wrote over a period of 2 years beforehand.

You can't help thinking that this is all a bit ineffective in the long run.