British Airways: Fine reduced

20. October 2020

In 2018 British Airways (BA) had to announce that they suffered a massive data breach. The data breach referred to the online booking tool. Login data and credit card data as well as travel data and address data were accessed illegaly. Affected were more than 400.000 customers.

Back in 2019 the UK’s Information Commissioners Office (ICO) evaluated the breach and stated that weak security precautions enabled the hakers to access the data. Thus, the ICO fined BA as a consequence of the breach a record fine of £183.000.000 (€ 205.000.000).

BA appealed against the fine and now – in 2020 – the ICO announced a reduced fine.

On October 16th, 2020, the ICO announced the final sanction for BA. The initial fine of £183.000.000 (€ 205.000.000) has been reduced to a total fine of £20.000.000 (€ 22.000.000). Reason for the reduction is inter alia the current COVID-19 situation and it’s consequences for the Aviation industry.

The notification from the authority states in this context:

As part of the regulatory process the ICO considered both representations from BA and the economic impact of COVID-19 on their business before setting a final penalty.