The ICO has fined Sony £250,000 for failing to prevent a significant data breach of its PlayStation Network Platform in April 2011.

Information of millions of users including payment details, names, addresses, email addresses, dates of birth and account passwords were compromised.

Sony responded to the breach by rebuilding the whole PlayStation network infrastructure.

The ICO found that a failure to keep the network up-to-date resulted in an avoidable data breach. David Smith, deputy commissioner and director of data protection, ICO, said: ““If you are responsible for so many payment card details and log-in details, then keeping that personal data secure has to be your priority”.