Data Protection Audits

A data protection audit gives you a clear, honest picture of where your business stands and where it’s exposed. Prices start from £1,000 plus VAT.

An audit is a high-level review of the data protection policies and procedures across your business. We look at the personal data coming in and going out, how it flows through the business, and the people it touches: customers, suppliers, employees and other third parties. The aim is to find the gaps and work out where the risk sits, then give you clear recommendations to close them.

You get a detailed written report you can actually use, built around your business rather than a generic checklist. It covers:

• where you currently fall short of your obligations
• where the main risks sit
• the practical steps we’d recommend, in priority order

It’s easy to see an audit as another cost the budget didn’t plan for. But the point of one is to expose problems while they’re still cheap to fix, rather than after a complaint or an ICO enquiry.

The ICO has wide powers here. It can carry out its own audits and issue fines for breaches of the law, and the Data Protection Act 2018 creates criminal offences for the misuse of personal data. Data protection isn’t a one-off task, it’s an ongoing responsibility, and knowing where you stand is the first step to managing it.

An audit costs less than a breach, and far less than an ICO fine.