Firms face new costs to fill ICO hole

Thousands of companies which handle personal data are facing a hike in charges from the Information Commissioner’s Office to pay for a potential £42m black hole in its finances as a result of the EU data reforms.
Under the proposed EU Data Protection Regulation, registration fees – which bring in £15m a year to the ICO – will be scrapped, while its increased workload will cost over £26m, sparking a call for the introduction of a tiered fee structure.
The demand is included in the ICO’s submission to the Ministry of Justice’s Triennial Review, which is designed to ensure the regulator is fit for purpose going forward.
In it, the ICO states: “Parliament will need to legislate for the necessary resourcing of the ICO’s data protection functions. This should continue to involve the payment of appropriate fees to fund the ICO. On the polluter pays principle, different tiers of fee should recognise the different size of organisations and the different scale of their processing of personal information.”
There are currently two tiers for payment; the vast majority of organisations, including small and medium-sized businesses, pay just £35 a year, while organisations with 250 or more staff and a turnover of at least £25.9m, pay £500.
Under any new tiered scheme most companies will have to cough up far more; a move which is likely to prove unpopular given the fact that industry body the DMA already estimates the EU reforms will cost UK businesses a whopping £47bn to implement.
One industry source said: “As if the EU changes aren’t bad enough, now we could be paying more to the ICO, too. Will it ever end?”