October 14, 2019

The appellant, Roy & Partners, was a data controller within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 2018, and was therefore required to comply with the Data Protection (Charges and Information) Regulations 2018.

As a “Tier 1” organisation, Roy’s Data Protection Fee, required by Regulation 2(2) of the Regulations, was £40.

Roy failed to pay the fee or to provide the Information Commissioner with the information required by Regulation 2(3) by the compliance date of 9 June 2018. Following service of a Notice of Intent on 7 November 2018 and, in the absence of any representations from Roy, the IC served a Penalty Notice of £400 on 4 March 2019.

Roy appealed to the Tribunal on the basis that its default was an innocent mistake. Roy asked for the penalty to be revoked/varied, saying that the direct debit by which it usually paid the fee had been cancelled by mistake before payment could be made. However, Roy did not provide any corroborating evidence of how the mistake was made, or why it did not realise that the fee had not been paid.

The Tribunal concluded that Roy did not have a reasonable excuse for its failure to comply with the Regulations. The Tribunal said that a reasonable data controller would have systems in place to comply with the Regulations and that Roy had pointed to no particular difficulty or misfortune that explained its departure from the expected standards of a reasonable data controller.

The Tribunal particularly noted that nine months had passed between Roy receiving a first reminder that the fee was due and the Penalty Notice being issued, during which time Roy had failed to realise that the direct debit had not been paid.

Given that Roy had not presented any evidence of financial hardship, there was no reason to depart from the IC’s policy as to the imposition of the £400 fixed penalty. The appeal was dismissed and the Penalty Notice confirmed. (Roy & Partners v Information Commissioner (Dismissed) [2019] UKFTT 2019_0096 (GRC) (08 October 2019) — to read the judgment in full, click here.