Information Commissioner's Office
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Prudential fined £50,000 for customer account confusion
This is the first monetary penalty served by the ICO that doesn’t relate to a significant data loss.
Prudential has been served with a monetary penalty of £50,000 following the incident, which resulted in a serious breach of the Data Protection Act. The original error was caused when the records of both customers, who share the same first name, surname and date of birth, were mistakenly merged in March 2007.
The accounts remained confused for more than three years, and the problem was only resolved in September 2010. This was despite the company being alerted to the mistake on several occasions, including a letter from one of the customers in late April 2010 which clearly indicated his address had not changed for over 15 years. The company failed to investigate thoroughly at this point and the penalty imposed today relates to the inaccuracy then present which continued for a further six months.
Stephen Eckersley, ICO Head of Enforcement, said:
“Organisations must make sure the information they hold on their customers’ files is accurate and kept up to date in order to comply with the Data Protection Act. In this case two customer files were consistently confused and the company failed to remedy the situation despite being alerted to the problem on more than one occasion before it was finally resolved.
“This case would be considered farcical were it not for the serious sums of money involved.”
Last year the public made more complaints about the way money lenders were handling their information than for any other sector. Around 15% of the almost 13,000 data protection complaints received by the ICO during the last financial year were due to concerns relating to this group, with inaccurate data the third most complained about issue across all sectors.
Commenting on the ICO’s concerns in this area, Stephen Eckersley continued:
“While data losses may make the headlines, most people will contact our office about inaccuracies and other issues relating to the misuse of their information. Inaccurate information on a customer’s record, particularly when the record relates to an individual’s financial affairs, can have a significant impact on someone’s life.
“We hope this penalty sends a message to all organisations, but particularly those in the financial sector, that adequate checks must be in place to ensure people’s records are accurate. Staff should also receive adequate training on how to manage and maintain them, with any concerns fully investigated in order to ensure problems are addressed at an early stage.”
Prudential has now improved the training it provides to its staff and updated its processes to ensure that the accuracy of customers’ records is maintained at all times.
View the ICO's recent monetary penalties
Notes to Editors
1. The Information Commissioner’s Office upholds information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals.
2. The ICO has specific responsibilities set out in the Data Protection Act 1998, the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.
3. The ICO is on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and produces a monthly e-newsletter.
4. Anyone who processes personal information must comply with eight principles of the Data Protection Act, which make sure that personal information is:
- Fairly and lawfully processed
- Processed for limited purposes
- Adequate, relevant and not excessive
- Accurate and up to date
- Not kept for longer than is necessary
- Processed in line with your rights
- Secure
- Not transferred to other countries without adequate protection
5. Civil Monetary Penalties (CMPs) are subject to a right of appeal to the (First-tier Tribunal) General Regulatory Chamber against the imposition of the monetary penalty and/or the amount of the penalty specified in the monetary penalty notice.
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