In a surprising development, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office has said that only a fifth of the private firms in the country have agreed to a free data protection audit by the authority.

The ICO revealed that just 19 per cent of the firms agreed to the audit in spite of the fact that there were 603 data breaches reported in 2010-2011, including 186 by private business. On the other hand, 71 percent of the public sector firms agreed to the free data protection audit by the ICO.

“Lenders, general businesses and direct marketing companies account for almost a third of total complaints to the ICO, and businesses were the top sector for reporting data security breaches to us last year. Despite this, many of them are still resisting our offer to undergo audits,” ICO Christopher Graham said.

He said that the watchdog wrote to the organizations facing high risks but the response has been disappointing. He also said that the audit is not aimed at shaming the organizations but to make them realize the limitations in their data protection policies and improve them with good practice and collaboration with the ICO.