Data breaches have risen by more than 1,000 percent in five years, with local governments being the main victims.

The data breach figures were released under a Freedom of Information (FoI) request and showed that local governments had seen a rise in data breaches of 1,609 percent, while other public sector organisations saw a rise of 1,380 percent.

The rise in data breaches may prove to become an expensive oversight, as the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) now has the power to issue penalties, with over £2 million in fines handed out to organisations regarding the Data Protection Act.