On 29 October 2008, the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, announced to the RSA Conference Europe that the number of data breaches reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office had soared to 277 since HMRC lost 25 million child benefit records in November 2007.
He highlighted the risks associated with large databases, the need for tougher sanctions to deter data breaches and called on chief executives to take responsibility for the personal information their organisations hold.
View Richard Thomas' speech
View a table of data security breaches notified to the ICO since November 2007 (last updated 30 April 2009)
Download the slides from the presentation
Read the accompanying press release
The ICO has produced guidance for organisations about some of the things that need to be considered in the event of a data security breach, for example the loss of a hard drive, memory stick or disk containing personal details.
Read our guidance on data security breach management
Read our guidance on reporting a data breach to the ICO
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