THE majority of Oxford-based businesses are risking penalties by failing to adhere to data protection rules, according to a new survey.

The survey of 1,002 UK workers by probrand.co.uk revealed 79 per cent of the city's businesses had failed to wipe data from IT equipment they disposed of in the two months following the introduction of GDPR, while 72 per cent of all Oxford based businesses do not have an official process or protocol for disposing of obsolete IT equipment.

What's more 60 per cent of workers in Oxford admit they wouldn’t even know who to approach in their company in order to correctly dispose of old or unusable equipment.

The results mean the city's firms are one of the worst offenders when it comes to adhering to the new GDPR legislation.

Matt Royle, marketing director at probrand.co.uk said: “Given the amount of publicity around GDPR it is arguably impossible to be unaware or misunderstand the basics of what is required for compliance. So, it is startling to discover just how many businesses are failing to both implement and follow some of the simplest data protection practices.”

“It is especially startling to see this overwhelmingly high percentage for businesses based in Oxford, considering the sheer number of companies the city has in close concentration.”

“The fines involved in a GDPR breach can potentially run into the millions – and what appear to be less tangible impactors, like reputational damage, customer trust and loyalty, will ultimately become financially significant.

“Given these findings, it is clear that more needs to be done to ensure that all businesses have a disposal procedure in place to avoid inadvertently leaking sensitive.data.”