Agents are starting to receive their new data controller fees from the Information Commissioner’s Officer (ICO) and it is likely your bills will look a bit different.

New fees and disclosure rules for data controllers were introduced as part of the general data protection regulations (GDPR) on May 25, which removed the need to inform the ICO about personal data held but changed the fee that is payable.

Now agents, and anyone holding personal data, must pay an annual fee, depending on your size or turnover, of £40, £60 or £2,900.

This is on top of the anti-money laundering supervision fee that has to be paid to HMRC annually at £130 per premises.

One agent, who declined to be named, has queried email reminders sent by the ICO as they are sent from the name “Registration Team Queue” and it is only when you check the email address, dataprotectionfee@ico.org.uk, that you see it originates from the ICO.

The ICO confirmed that this was the email and name used.

Failure to pay the data protection fee was previously a criminal offence but will now be addressed through a fixed penalty, which the ICO said can be up to £4,350 in “aggravating” circumstances such as refusing to comply, providing misleading information and evidence of continued late payments over a number of years.

An ICO spokesman told EYE: “There is no administration fee charged on top of the fixed penalty for any data controller who fails to pay the data protection fee when required to do so.

“The fixed penalty amount is regardless of the tier that the organisation falls within. The fixed penalty does not include the data protection fee. Therefore if a fixed penalty is issued the data protection fee would also be required to pay.”

Agents can check what their bill will be at ico.org.uk/fee-self-assessment.