Complaints arrive everywhere
Inboxes, DMs, phone calls, the front desk. Nothing ties them together.
Section 164A, Data Protection Act 2018
Data protection complaints, handled. Before the ICO asks.
Since 19 June 2026 every UK business must accept, acknowledge, investigate and record data protection complaints. PrivacyComplaints does it for you for £15 a month.
See what the law requires£15 a month vs fines of up to £8.7 million. Built for small UK businesses.
Complaints
4 active records
PC-1042
Website form
PC-1041
PC-1040
Phone
PC-1039
Social media
It's already law. Most businesses aren't ready.
The duty applies to every controller regardless of size or sector. There is no small business exemption. A complaint can arrive by email, contact form, social media or a chat with any member of staff, and you have to accept it however it comes in.
The 30 day clock is easy to miss
Nobody owns it, nobody is counting.
An autoresponder isn't a record
It covers the acknowledgement and nothing else.
Enforcement risk
Get it wrong and you face fines of up to £8.7 million.
Or 2% of your total worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher. Section 164A is enforceable by the ICO, and it applies to every UK business that handles personal data. No exemptions for size.
£8.7m
Maximum fine for breaching Section 164A
2%
Of worldwide turnover, if higher
30 days
To acknowledge every complaint. The clock starts on arrival.
Every complaint you receive is a record the ICO can ask to see. Missed acknowledgements, lost emails, complaints left sitting in a DM or with a member of staff: each one is evidence you weren't compliant.
And complainants don't have to wait for you. They can go to the ICO at any point. When they do, your complaint records are the first thing that gets looked at. If you can't produce them, you've already lost the argument.
The ICO has said it will use complaint volumes and trends to decide which organisations to intervene with. A messy complaints process doesn't just risk a fine. It puts you on the radar.
Fines are set by the ICO case by case and are discretionary. Figures are statutory maximums under section 157(4A) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This is general information, not legal advice.
Four duties. One tool that covers all of them.
Duty 01
Give people a way to complain
How PrivacyComplaints handles it
A ready-made complaints form you embed on your site in one line of code.
Duty 02
Acknowledge within 30 days
How PrivacyComplaints handles it
Automatic acknowledgement the moment a complaint lands, and the 30 day clock starts itself.
Duty 03
Respond without undue delay
How PrivacyComplaints handles it
Track every enquiry and update in one timeline, with reminders so nothing stalls.
Duty 04
Tell them the outcome
How PrivacyComplaints handles it
Send the outcome from a template and it is logged against the complaint automatically.
One complaint. One clear history.
The ICO can ask to see your complaint records, and it has said complaint volumes and trends will help it decide whether to intervene with an organisation. PrivacyComplaints keeps a complete history of every complaint from arrival to outcome, even when it came in by phone or social media and several people worked on it.
Log a complaint from any channel
Add ones that came in by phone, DM or in person in seconds.
One-click evidence pack
Export everything the ICO could ask for as a single PDF.
Complaint PC-1040
Received
19 Jun, 09:14
Acknowledged
19 Jun, 09:15
Enquiries made
22 Jun, 14:30
Outcome sent
1 Jul, 10:08
Closed
1 Jul, 10:10
Set up in ten minutes
- 1
Sign up and add your business details.
- 2
Drop the complaints form on your site and add the wording to your privacy notice. We give you both.
- 3
Complaints get acknowledged, tracked and recorded automatically.
A clear process beats a patched-together one
| What you need | Shared inbox + spreadsheet | PrivacyComplaints |
|---|---|---|
| Accepts complaints from any channel | Manual | Yes |
| Automatic acknowledgement | No | Yes |
| 30 day clock tracking | Manual | Yes |
| Full investigation history | Manual | Yes |
| Outcome records | Manual | Yes |
| ICO-ready evidence export | No | Yes |
| Staff know exactly where complaints go | No | Yes |
One plan. One price.
£15 / month
Everything you need to meet Section 164A
- Embeddable complaints form
- Automatic acknowledgements
- 30 day clock and reminders
- Multi-channel complaint log
- Outcome templates
- One-click ICO evidence pack
- Privacy notice wording
Cancel anytime. No contract.