ICO announce BA fine of £20 million

Ba fine issued: The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced that British Airways would receive a dramatically reduced fine of just £20 million.

The BA fine announcement came as a shock to many after the ICO’s proposed intention to fine was originally set at £183 million last year.

We are currently representing victims of the British Airways data breach for legal cases on a No Win, No Fee basis. If you have been affected by the breach, you could be eligible to join the group action claim now. Whilst the ICO has announced the hugely reduced BA fine, it is still vital that fight for the rights of the victims of the breach to get the justice that they deserve for the loss of control of their personal information.

British Airways Data Breach

The British Airways data breach affected almost half a million customers over two separate periods in 2018. Customers who made or changed a booking between 10:58pm on 21 August 2018 and 9:45pm on 5 September 2018, and customers who made a reward booking between 21st April 2018 and 28th July 2018, could be affected by the data breach.

If you made a booking during these periods, you could be eligible to make a claim and join the compensation action now.

Information accessed by the hackers in the data breach included names, addresses and payment card details which, in some cases, included CVV numbers. This information can easily leave victims of the data breach vulnerable to fraudulent activity and potential phishing scams and cold callers. A large number of the clients that we represent have reported such incidents taking place as well.

BA fine reduced by 90%

The BA fine being reduced by such a significant amount is concerning to us. We believe that the £183 million intention to fine was an amount that could have had the ‘dissuasive effect’ required for large companies when it comes to data security and preventing data breaches from taking place. To us, the £20 million is simply not enough to dissuade companies from doing this, and the significance of the reduction could undermine the GDPR. We do not see data breaches declining as a result of such a significantly reduced amount.

The impact of the coronavirus pandemic is likely to have been a factor for the ICO reducing the BA fine. The aviation industry has taken a huge loss throughout the course of the pandemic and lockdown meaning this would have to be taken into consideration when deciding the amount to fine. Nevertheless, the reduced BA fine imposed by the ICO is still a cause for concern for us in terms of the kind of precedent that it may set.

Ready to make a BA data breach claim?

If you have been affected by the British Airways data breach, there is still time to join the British Airways Group Action claim.

The fine does not cover compensation for victims of the breach, which is where we come in. We are here to fight for your rights to compensation as a result of the sensitive data breach that has resulted in your information being exposed.

You can join the claim via the BA Group Action website here.