Data Protection

(asked on 16th June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the level of data theft in the UK.


Answered by
Baroness Barran Portrait
Baroness Barran
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This question was answered on 22nd June 2020

The Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2020 shows that 46% of businesses and 26% of charities identified cyber breaches or attacks in the last 12 months. Of these, 1% of businesses and 4% of charities had personal data altered, destroyed or taken. In addition, 1% of businesses and charities which experienced a breach or attack said they suffered lost or stolen assets, trade secrets or intellectual property, which may include personal and non-personal data.

Through the National Cyber Security Strategy, the Government is investing £1.9 billion to help organisations stay secure and make the UK the safest place to live and work online.

As part of the current cross-Government Cyber Aware campaign, the National Cyber Security Centre recently launched a Suspicious Email Reporting Service to enable the public to report suspicious emails and help prevent data theft.

We have also strengthened our data protection legislation through the Data Protection Act 2018. The Act includes criminal offences of unlawfully obtaining personal data and/or re-identifying pseudonymised data. The legislation is enforced by the Information Commissioner's Office who can - and do - bring prosecutions where appropriate.

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