RTÉ reports:
Two telecoms companies have pleaded guilty to multiple breaches of data protection legislation at the Dublin District Court and have been ordered to pay a total of €30,000 to two charities.
The charges follow the theft of two unencrypted laptops, containing personal and financial information of customers, from the office of Eircom Ltd trading as eMobile, and Meteor Mobile Communications Ltd trading as Meteor in Parkwest in Dublin late last year or early this year.
Both companies were charged with failing to protect the personal data held on the laptops, failing to notify the Data Protection Commission of this personal data breach without undue delay and failure to notify the effected individuals without delay.
Read more on RTÉ .
This is the first prosecution of its kind involving a stolen laptop with customer data. The charges included not notifying the DPC within the required notification period, failure to protect data adequately, and failure to notify customers in a timely fashion.