Direct Leeds, which is part of St Ives' direct marketing and commercial print division, passed pre-audit security tests before achieving the Information Security Management System (ISMS) standard.

Darren Lowe, operations director of St Ives Direct, said: "We decided that we should implement the ISO 27001:2005 accreditation to officially acknowledge that the Leeds facility is successfully managing a secure operation."

He added: "It provides us with the opportunity to learn of any additional improvements we can make to our internal security best practice."

The process involved an initial review of the site's key security documents, as well as an in-depth audit of the effectiveness of the information security controls.

Lowe added: "We anticipate that achieving this accreditation will be a huge selling point for the Direct division, further raising prospective clients' confidence in our ability to handle sensitive data."