A data breach is when your personal information is accessed, lost, destroyed, changed or disclosed without your permission or unlawfully.
Has your personal data been exposed due to the failings of an organisation that was supposed to protect it? Have you suffered from stress, anxiety or financial loss following this data breach?
We take your data seriously. See our privacy policy & terms.
A data breach is when your personal information is accessed, lost, destroyed, changed or disclosed without your permission or unlawfully.
However, your personal data being exposed is not enough for you to be awarded compensation. It needs to have been exposed due to the failings of the organisation that was supposed to protect it. In addition, you need to have suffered some kind of mental or financial damage to be eligible for compensation.
Example of data breaches:
Cases of cyber crimes affected UK businesses over the past 12 months
Fraud cases which begin online. 18% start via telecommunications
Fraudulent incidents across UK businesses in 2023
Total cost of data breaches in 2023
*As of September 2023. Figures quoted by the ICO.org and ITGovernance.co.uk.
In cases where people have been awarded data breach compensation, examples consist of instances where the claimant has suffered financial losses as a result of their information being leaked. Another scenario could be when an individual’s medical records have been accessed unlawfully. This could lead to issues with anxiety or depression developing or being made worse.
It’s important to note that data breach claims relate to information that’s stored somewhere. For example, a physical folder or a hard drive can contain personal information. Unfortunately, you can’t make a claim for compensation if your personal information is disclosed verbally between sources.
You may be wondering ‘How much compensation for a data breach could I claim?’. If your personal data has been compromised in a UK GDPR breach, compensation could be awarded to you for any psychological injuries and financial losses.
Non-material damage refers to the mental harm you have suffered due to your personal data being breached. For example, you could suffer from anxiety due to a data breach if your home address was compromised, as you may worry about strangers arriving at your home. Providing evidence about your non-material damage could help support your claim.
Depending on the level of damage caused by the breach, you could be entitled to compensation of £3,000 to £30,000+.
The GDPR gives you a right to claim compensation from an organisation if you have suffered damage as a result of it breaking data protection law. This includes both “material damage” (e.g. you have lost money) or “non-material damage” (e.g. you have suffered distress).
The ICO cannot award compensation, even when we give our opinion that an organisation has broken data protection law.
You do not have to make a court claim to obtain compensation – the organisation may simply agree to pay it to you. However, if it does not agree to pay, your next step would be to make a claim in court. The court would decide your case. If it agreed with you, it would decide whether or not the organisation would have to pay you compensation.
We strongly recommend you take independent legal advice on the strength of your case before taking any claim to court.
The court will want to know what steps you have taken to try to settle the claim. This means you must write or speak to the media organisation to see if you can reach an agreement.
If you fail to reach an agreement, you should write to the organisation before you start court proceedings, telling them you intend to go to court. You should take into account any court rules about pre-action conduct – for example in England and Wales, claimants must follow the pre-action protocols before starting any legal proceedings.
If you cannot reach an agreement with the media organisation, you can apply to a court with an action to enforce your rights under data protection law. If you wish to claim compensation, you can apply to do this on its own or combine it with an action to enforce your rights.
The individual court systems provide useful guidance on how to bring a claim in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
As mentioned above, we strongly recommend that you take independent legal advice before starting any claim in the court system.
This will be up to the judge hearing the case, who will take into account all the circumstances. This will include how serious the infringement was and its impact on you, particularly when assessing the distress you suffered.
If the organisation refuses or is unable to pay, you should ask the court how you can enforce the judgment.
You should also bear in mind that the court can award costs to you or against you in certain circumstances. For example, if you fail to demonstrate you have suffered damage or distress, the court will not award you compensation and could order you to pay the other party’s costs.
Again, we recommend you seek independent legal advice to allow you to consider the risks of bringing a claim.
Both individuals and companies can make a data breach claim for compensation. To claim compensation you must be able to prove that you suffered as a result of the data protection breach. You can claim for both damages and distress.
The limitation period for making a data protection claim is currently six years. This means that all breaches of data going back six years are now potentially subject to a claim. With strict time limits in place, it’s important to act now.
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We take your data seriously. See our privacy policy & terms.
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