This statistic comes from the agency’s survey of over 350 business leaders across the UK and US working in financial and professional services, undertaken in light of the five-year anniversary of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Communication — or lack thereof — on GDPR requirements could potentially be the reason underpinning the breaches: only a third of firms surveyed (33%) have organised formal training on GDPR, with 28% rather relying on written policies and procedures. Further, 18% depend on informal discussions and reminders and 6% provide none of those already mentioned.

In terms of the benefits following GDPR’s introduction, respondents noted improved data protection practices (33%), increased data privacy awareness amongst employees (27%), and improved customer trust in their organisation (15%). However, 20% say that GDPR has also increased their organisation’s compliance costs.

Looking forward, firms want to see more rules put into place to protect consumer data. Just over half of those surveyed (54%) said they would like to see stricter data protection requirements, with more than a third (33%) saying they would like to see increased penalties for non-compliance.

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Yogesh Shah, CEO of iResearch Services, commented on the survey’s findings, saying: “While meeting data regulations such as GDPR requires an upfront financial investment, the news this week surrounding Meta highlights how the cost of non-compliance can far outweigh this.

“Data breaches can also have a damaging long term effect on a firm’s brand and reputation, and so it is positive to see that firms are welcoming stricter regulations to reduce their likelihood of experiencing a data breach of their own.”

The news Shah is referring to is the story that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has received a record-breaking €1.2 billion (£1bn) fine from Irish regulators for its breach of GDPR data sharing policies.

The €1.2b fine was announced by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission after a decade-long case which concluded that Meta was transferring European users’ data in a way that created risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms of the users.

Earlier this week, DIGIT also reported on research from Macro 4, the software development company, which uncovered that 18% of UK IT leaders aren’t confident about their firm’s GDPR compliance.