Managers must face IT accountability

13:59 10th July 2008

Senior managers have been advised that they must face accountability for data protection in their IT systems, to ensure the safety of security information.

Experts in the public sector believe that data protection will only improve when senior corporate officer's jobs are at risk - if they do not adequately secure IT systems.

David Smith told the Westminster eForum on Security last week that there must be a level of responsibility for organisations.

He said: "It is about scrutiny, policing, data deletion and data minimisation, but above all it is about accountability."

These regulations are encouraged by the legal firm Bird & Bird, which believes that the issue is not currently being taken seriously enough by managers and that many recent high profile breaches could have been avoided.

According to research conducted by the Ponemon Institute the average cost to a company that suffers a data breach stands at £1.4 million.

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