{"id":1047,"date":"2022-06-30T15:37:29","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T15:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1047"},"modified":"2022-09-09T15:37:26","modified_gmt":"2022-09-09T15:37:26","slug":"ico-failing-collect-fines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/ico-failing-collect-fines\/","title":{"rendered":"ICO still failing to collect fines as 74% of fines remain unpaid"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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ICO still failing to collect fines as 74% of the value of fines remain unpaid<\/h1>\n\n

The ICO\u2019s fine collection woes just seem to get worse and worse.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Last year, we reported that\u00a0just 32% of the monetary value<\/a>\u00a0of ICO fines issued had been paid.
In this latest update, we can reveal that that figure has\u00a0slumped to just 26%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

In the period from Jan 2020 to September 2021 the ICO has handed out 47 fines to companies that have broken the rules on spam or data protection.<\/p>\n\n

Out of 47 fines in total, a modest 19 of them have been paid. Out\u00a0of \u00a37million\u00a0fined, a mere \u00a31.81 has been successfully collected.<\/p>\n\n

These figures exclude the 2 massive GDPR penalties for British Airways (\u00a320 million) and Marriott Hotels (\u00a318.4 million) These companies have agreed to pay their fines in annual installments.<\/p>\n\n

Fines issued between Jan 2020 and Sept 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n
Total fined\u00a0<\/td>\n\u00a37.00 million (excluding BA and Marriott Hotels)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Paid<\/td>\n\u00a31.81 million\u00a025.9%<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Unpaid<\/td>\n\u00a35.19 million\u00a074.1%<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/figure>\n\n

Fines for SMS spam are the most likely to remain unpaid, with 82.4% of penalties yet to be collected.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

Fines to home improvements companies are the least likely to be paid<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

The home improvements sector has received \u00a31.6 million in fines since Jan 20, all of them for making irritating nuisance calls to unexpecting home owners.<\/p>\n\n

Of that, a paltry \u00a3280,000 has actually been collected, or just 17% of the total owed.<\/p>\n\n

By contrast charities had paid 100% of the fines issued.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

Fines collection remains slow and cumbersome<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

Despite new regulations that make company directors personally responsible for paying fines issued to their companies, many are still simply refusing to pay.<\/p>\n\n

A number of companies have appealed their fines but the appeals process is painfully slow and unwieldy.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

For example, Eldon Insurance, who were fined \u00a360,000 for email spam in February 2019 still have an unresolved appeal on their case nearly 3 years later.<\/p>\n\n

A total \u00a31.1 million of ICO fines is currently under appeal.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Many of the debt recovery cases are dragging on for years with no sign of a resolution any time soon.<\/p>\n\n

MyIML Ltd were fined \u00a380,000 for making nuisance calls, trying to sell solar panels and other green energy equipment. The fine was handed out in January 2016 and the ICO is stating that recovery is still ongoing in September 2021, nearly 6 years later.<\/p>\n\n

Despite the poor performance in debt collection, ICO Commissioner Elizabeth Denham, who is leaving the role later this year, said:<\/p>\n\n

\n

\u201cOur successes are testament to the hard work and expertise of the ICO\u2019s staff, and the foundations of the modern ICO laid across the past five years.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

The solution might lie\u00a0in smaller, not larger fines<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

The larger the fine the less likely it is to be paid.<\/p>\n\n

Once a fine exceeds \u00a3100,000 it\u2019s far more likely to go to appeal or just remain unpaid.
Smaller fines might stand a better chance of being collected, particularly for the arguably lesser crimes of email and bulk SMS or\u00a0SMS API<\/a>\u00a0spam.<\/p>\n\n

Some fines seem unduly harsh. EE for example were fined \u00a3100,000 for inadvertently breaking the rules on SMS spam.<\/p>\n\n

They had sent a text to 2.5 million customers that combined a\u00a0transactional SMS\u00a0message<\/a>\u00a0with direct marketing, when they hadn\u2019t obtained the correct opt-in for the marketing part of the message.<\/p>\n\n

In their ruling, the ICO explicitly stated that \u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\n

\u201cEE Limited did not deliberately set out to breach electronic marketing laws\u201d.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

The SMS campaign generated no complaints at all.
It was simply a genuine bulk SMS campaign to existing customers.<\/p>\n\n

Number of ICO fines is rising<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

After a 2 year dip in the number of fines issued in 2019 –\u00a02020, fines are now clearly on the rise.<\/p>\n\n

In the whole of 2020, just 16 fines were handed out. In 2020 there have been 31 fines up to September, with 3 month of the year to go.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

Cold calling tops the most fined chart<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

Nuisance calls remain the most fined offence, with 72 fines in total since 2015.
They also attract the highest number of complaints by consumers.<\/p>\n\n

The ICO has restated their determination to stamp it out.
Commenting on a \u00a350,000 nuisance calls fine to Parkin Beacher Ltd, Andy Curry, ICO Head of Investigations, said:<\/p>\n\n

\n

\u201cCold calls are a common way of attempting to defraud people out of their pensions and we will take tough action where we find companies carrying out this kind of marketing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Companies are responsible for knowing the law and following it. We have a range of powers and enforcement action which we can and will take on behalf of the public to put a stop to the activities of unscrupulous companies.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Fine Type<\/strong><\/td>\nNumber of ICO fines issued since 2015 (Total 201)<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Calls<\/td>\n72<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Data Breach<\/td>\n66<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Email<\/td>\n24<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
SMS<\/td>\n39<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/figure>\n\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n

Financial services dominate ICO fines<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

Financial services and claims management fines combined\u00a0are responsible for more fines than any other sector.<\/p>\n\n

Taken together, they account for 65 fines since 2015, or 32% of all fines issued.
The home improvement sector is also particularly poor, being responsible for 34 fines, all for nuisance calls.<\/p>\n\n

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ICO still failing to collect fines as 74% of the value of fines remain unpaid The ICO\u2019s fine collection woes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":83,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}