Member

Evidence proves that overreliance on reprimand lacks deterrence for lawbreakers. For instance, the Home Office was issued three consecutive reprimands in 2022 for a number of data protection breaches, recording and publishing conversations with Windrush victims without consent, and a systemic failure to answer subject access requests within statutory limits, with over 22,000 requests handled late. Against this background, the ICO issued yet another reprimand to the Home Office in 2024. The Home Office’s persistence in not complying with data protection law is a good example of how reprimands, if not supported by the threat of substantive enforcement action, fail to provide a deterrence and thus get ignored by the public sector.