Do I need to pay a data protection fee?

ICO has been sending out letters with concerning headlines along the lines of “Unpaid data protection fee. Due by 17 December”. It is not uncommon for people to discard letters like that thinking they are spam.

If you paid the fee then you’re all done, unless you want to double check you needed to - see below. If you ignored the letter then perhaps read on - you don’t want to be hit with a £4,000 fine!

The data protection fee is part of the ‘Data Protection Act 2018’. From now on organisations that process personal information must pay a fee on an annual basis, unless they are exempt. You’re exempt from paying the fee if all of your personal information processing falls into one or more of these categories: 

• Staff administration

• Advertising, marketing and public relations

• Accounts and records

• Not-for-profit purposes

• Personal, family or household affairs

• Maintaining a public register

• Judicial functions

• Processing personal information without an automated system (such as a computer).

• Processing personal information by members of the House of Lords, elected representatives and prospective representatives

To be 100% sure if you need to pay the data protection fee you can complete a quick self assessment kindly provided by ICO. 

If you then need to pay the data protection fee you can do it here.