Almost £13m in data privacy fines have been left unpaid

Spotlight analysis shows a quarter of the fines issued by the ICO since 2017 have not been paid.

British Airways is paying back a £2m ICO fine. Photo courtesy of PASCAL PAVANI/AFP/Getty Images

Almost £13m worth of data privacy fines issued in the past five years by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) have not been paid, according to Spotlight analysis of the privacy watchdog’s enforcement data. This represents more than a quarter of the 160 fines meted out by the ICO since 2017.

Of those 160 fines, which include penalties under the Data Protection Act (DPA) and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), 41 were left unpaid, either due to a legal appeal or because companies chose to go into liquidation instead of paying the fine. Since 2017, a total of 34 companies have been liquidated.