Bank of Scotland fined £75,000 for sending payslips to wrong people

Bank of Scotland has been fined £75,000 for sending customer details, including payslips, to the wrong people over a three year period.

Since 2009 a number of documents including payslips, account details, mortgage applications, bank statements and customer details were all faxed to unintended recipients. At least 21 documents were sent to third party organisations where one digit in the fax number was different to the planned recipient. At least 10 more were sent to members of the public who also had similar fax numbers.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said that the bank continued to misdirect faxes, despite having many incidents reported to them. Stephen Eckersley, the ICO’s head of enforcement commented on the penalty saying "To send a person's financial records to the wrong fax number once is careless. To do so continually over a three-year period, despite being aware of the problem, is unforgiveable and in clear breach of the Data Protection Act."

"Let us not forget that this information would have been all a criminal would ever need to carry out identity fraud. Today's penalty reflects the seriousness of this case."

This announcement demonstrates the importance of having secure systems in place, regardless of the size of your company. IRIS OpenPayslips, our e-payslips solution, offers a completely secure solution for distributing payslips to your employees. Once published, employees can only view their e-payslip using their personalised, secure login details.

If you want to find out more about the range of benefits e-payslips offer, why not book onto one of our free e-payslips webinars?

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