British Airways to face £183m fine over data breach

By Muhammad Mussa

LONDON (AA) - British Airways (BA) will face a record fine of £183 million ($229 million) by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) over a mass data breach last year, the ICO announced on Monday.

Between August and September 2018, customers’ personal information was stolen from the airline’s website and app, due to what BA called a criminal hack.

"British Airways responded quickly to a criminal act to steal customers’ data," BA chairman Alex Cruz said in a statement in response to the fine.

"We have found no evidence of fraud/fraudulent activity on accounts linked to the theft. We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience this event caused," Cruz added.

The BA chairman said that he was "surprised and disappointed" by the ICO’s decision to fine the company with the airline’s owner International Airlines Group (IAG) stating they will appeal the decision.

The breach was first disclosed by BA to the public in September 2018 but the ICO believes the attack began two months prior in June, with a variety of personal information comprised due to poor security on behalf of the airline.

The ICO has said that the information of around 500,000 customers was stolen by hackers, including names, email addresses and credit card information.