Data thieves under fire

People who steal personal data should face harsher sentences or even prison, the information commissioner has said, after a woman who illegally sold 28,000 customer records for £5,000 was fined just £1,000.

Car rental company employee Sindy Nagra, 42, received the fine last week for handing over customer information to accident claims companies. The data which she collected at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, in Hayes, included details of insurance policyholders and their claims. The company contacted the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) after noticing that Nagra was looking at a far larger number of records than she was expected to process, and Nagra pleaded guilty to a breach of the Data Protection Act. The man she sold the data to was also fined £1,000.

Courts can issue unlimited fines for the offence, but not custodial sentences.

Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, says: “Nuisance call cowboys and claims market crooks will pay people to steal personal data.

“We’d like to see the courts given more options: suspended sentences, community service, and even prison in the most serious cases.”

Tom Morrison, partner at Rollits, says: “The current Information Commissioner Christopher Graham is fast approaching the end of his time in post and he clearly feels that there is some unfinished business to deal with here.

“The power to impose custodial sentences is something which he has been advocating for many years. It would not be a difficult legal step to activate the power and the political will seems to be there in an environment when privacy and security have never had a higher profile.”