Did he have to delete the data
If not, £1000 for 16,000 validated contacts in the specific domain area seems remarkably cheap.
A vet recruitment consultant who squirrelled away the personal details of almost 300 people from his former employer was today slapped on the wrists by the UK's information watchdog. Daniel Short, a recruiter from Devon, left VetPro Recruitment in October 2017, but set up a new company called VetSelect shortly afterwards. …
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"Data protection laws are there for a reason and the ICO will continue to take action against those who abuse their position."
Fine, but the level of "action" means the ICOs interference will just be seen as a cost of doing business.
Until that "Action" is a deterrent, you may as well just add a surcharge to companies for them to pay the crown yearly.
You're probably going to be very interested to hear about this little-known new law called the "GDPR", the Giraffe, Dogs and Pigs Regulations that provides additional penalties to vets who duck about with people's personal details.
[actually I'll be honest I don't know which bits of the GDPR hit folk who lift data rather than smacking folks who allow it to be lifted, but I'm sure it'll be in there somewhere]
"Fine, but the level of "action" means the ICOs interference will just be seen as a cost of doing business."
This is a small time outfit set up late last year. It seems to have got through a couple of "senior" staff in that short time.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10973946
Even if GDPR had been in place I doubt it would been much different an outcome. He's been fined and has a criminal record.
Unless of course you propose hanging like many on here would.
Until that "Action" is a deterrent, you may as well just add a surcharge to companies for them to pay the crown yearly.
Up to now this behaviour has probably been seen as standard practice by a lot of salesdroids. This case should be a warning that it isn't. Although the fine in this case might be low* don't expect it to be as low under GDPR and don't expect it to be low for repeat offenders.
* You also have to factor in that a guilty plea brings a reduced fine.
I met an honest estate agent once, which was a deeply unsettling experience. I'm sure there's probably a flat-earther working for a space agency somewhere too, just on the numbers, but still, you never expect to actually meet them yourself!
They specialised in selling very nice houses to very rich people. Seemed that at that level the need to rush or deceive vanishes into the cavernous depth of your fees, and the value of reputation.
...If I give my details to recruiter Jack Schmidt when he works for 'Jobz-R-Uz' and he takes my details when he sets up 'Employment Pimps UK', how come he can't claim it's all legal and above board because my initial contact was through him, regardless of which company he worked for at the time?
And was this fine because he misused people's personal information (to find them work... surely why they handed it over in the first place??) or as punishment for "stealing" the data from his previous employer? I guess the acid test would be, how much did the "victims" whose information he "stole" get, how much did his previous employer get, and how much did the 'court' keep?
(Disclaimer - I don't work for any of the parties involved, I'm certainly not a vet, and I'm sure there's little similarity between what vets do to pets and what employment agencies do to their 'clients'...)
As a general rule (there are some limited exceptions, and always well defined in contract), when you do work for a company, the work, and the results of the work, belongs to the company (and you get paid). Jack Schmitt gathered the details on behalf of his then-employer, and they paid him for it.
It wasn't his data to take with him, hence the whole getting-fined thing.
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law#United_Kingdom"
"Retrospective criminal laws are prohibited by Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the United Kingdom is a signatory, but several noted legal authorities have stated their opinion that parliamentary sovereignty takes priority even over this"
So going by that the DPA is still the law that applies.
However I should add, that by holding onto that data that is illegally obtained, then that itself would fall under the new laws.
Disclaimer: If a lawyer is using a Wiki article as your defense, get a new lawyer.
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Perpahs the vet world doesn’t use LinkedIn, however it appears every single IT recruiter has asked me to link, and they shift between agencies regularly, so it would be hard to prove any of them “stole” the details from a previous employer.
Or are they meant to de-link when they move employer?
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I thought is was pretty standard practice for a salesperson/recruiter to take their contacts list with them when they move.
Might not be legal but it definitely happens as the old Rolodex is a goldmine of pre vetted hot leads with people who already know the person and like to spend their peanuts.
Used to work for a very large software reseller.
I once found an unusual Excel file in our outgoing email filters (paranoid company, hence anon.).
Reported it to IT Manager. They were not impressed when I showed them the content of said file.
IT Manager went to HR, who were equally unimpressed.
HR went to sales droids desk, who handed over their ID / access badge and walked out.
The file? It contained 15000 contacts, a data dump of every contact held for an industry sector.