Data breach compensation pay-out guide

With data breaches gaining traction in recent times, many people could be becoming wary of disclosing their data to businesses and organisations, and some may be concerned about what that they can do in the event of a data breach. Your Lawyers, as leading specialists in data breach claims and consumer group actions, are passionate about widening access to justice. This is why want to give you a brief data breach compensation pay-out guide to demonstrate what can be achieved by asserting your legal rights.

In accordance with UK law, all third parties that process, handle or store information relating to their customers, employees or other consumers are obliged to protect it in accordance with the GDPR. This involves ensuring that appropriate data protection procedure is followed by staff, and that there are sufficient cybersecurity defences in place to block potential hackers.

As a result, data controllers can fall foul of the law if they expose or compromise information through their own negligence. If you have been the victim of breach of data protection law, you could be eligible to claim compensation for any harm caused. Read on or contact us to find out more about your potential data breach claim.

The impact of data breaches

In the wake of data breaches, those affected can suffer significant anxiety, particularly in cases where their personal information has become vulnerable to access by cybercriminals. These criminals often choose to misuse exposed information for financial gain, through various types of scams and fraud.

Data breaches can, therefore, come with both a psychological and a financial impact. This is important to highlight in our brief data breach compensation pay-out guide.

Data breach compensation pay-out guide – how much could I be entitled to receive?

In order to give you some form of a data breach compensation pay-out guide, we have to stress that the compensation pay-out of each client can vary significantly in value. We aim to ensure that you receive a compensation award that reflects the specific impact the breach has had on you, which is why we can evaluate each claim carefully.

For example, if you have suffered emotionally or psychologically as a result of your claim, this can be taken into account in your claim. If you have suffered minimal distress, you may generally fall at the lower end of the compensation bracket, while those who suffered recognised psychological injuries could receive compensation exceeding £10,000 pounds.

In addition, if you suffered financial loss due to, for example, fraud resulting from a data breach, you could be separately reimbursed under a Special Damages pay-out.

As a general guide, we can tell you about our average data breach claim pay-out, based on past cases. As things stand in 2021, with over £1m recovered for mostly individual clients to date, the average is just over £6,000 per client. In two of our biggest data breach actions, the British Airways and Virgin Media actions, we valued claims at potentially between £5,000 and £6,000, potentially going up to the region of £16,000 in some serious cases. What this can tell you is that making a claim can be highly worthwhile.

It is important to never undervalue a claim. We know of other firms that have settled cheaply and quickly and have grossly undervalued claims in our view, perhaps to get them off their books as soon as they can. We are totally against this kind of dangerous philosophy. With us, we always aim to get you the maximum amount!

Make your data breach claim

As leading specialist in data breach claims, Your Lawyers – The Data Leak Lawyers – has been representing clients for privacy matters since 2014. Our expertise in this area of law has resulted in us playing a role in some of the largest group actions ever seen in England and Wales, including those against Virgin Media and British Airways as referenced above.

Regardless of the scale of the data breach, you could be eligible to make a claim for the harm caused.

We hope that this brief data breach compensation pay-out guide has been useful for you. We can often offer to represent eligible claimants on a No Win, No Fee basis, and anyone affected by a data breach can contact us today to receive bespoke legal advice.

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