A Data Protection Officer (DPO) is an experienced data protection specialist who helps your business maintain compliance with data protection regulations, informing and advising on all data privacy matters. A DPO plays a crucial role in protecting personal data within your organisation, advising on and completing DPIAs as well as acting as a single point of contact for data subjects and the ICO.
The DPO must be independent, adequately resourced, have appropriate expertise, and report directly to the highest level of managment.
If your organisation is a public body, carries out large scale systematic monitoring of individuals, or engages in large scale processing of special category data, you must appoint a DPO by law.

The ICO has broad powers in the event of non-compliance, including powers to issue warnings, reprimands, and fines of up to £17.5 million or 4% of annual global turnover – whichever is greater.

While reprimands are the most common penalty issued, the ICO does not hesitate to hand out substantial fines, most notably where an organisation has inappropriately used personal data for marketing purposes, or has been seriously negligent in its data protection policies and practices.

The largest ICO fine to date was issued to British Airways, who in 2019 was ordered to pay £20 million for a serious breach in which the data of 400,000 customers was compromised.

Too often, breaches of GDPR are the result of delay, poor communication, and lack of internal processes. Having a single, dedicated point of contact for data protection matters ensures there is clear allocation of responsibility within the organisation, with dedicated expertise on hand when things go wrong. Having a well resourced DPO further ensures that any gaps in compliance are continuously identified and remedied.