Employees giving access to unauthorised parties can constitute a breach of the GDPR and can result in victims being eligible to pursue compensation on a No Win, No Fee basis.
At Your Lawyers, as a Leading Privacy Claims Specialist operating in England and Wales, we are used to representing thousands of people for data breach claims. You can talk to our team for expert advice on a completely free, no-obligation basis here now.
Issues of employees giving access to unauthorised individuals
Employees giving access to unauthorised third parties or unauthorised individuals in respect of private information is a real cause for concern. One of the major ways in which this can happen is when scammers and criminals will lead to employees giving access to databases and information by duping them. It can easily occur by way of a phishing email or a scam email that is made to look legitimate where an employee falls for the scam and allows access or provides access credentials.
There have been many incidents where employees have been successfully targeted by fraudsters this way. There can also be incidents of employees giving access to information to colleagues when they should not have done so as well, which can equally be a breach of privacy.
Ultimately, the principle to determine whether a data breach has taken place or not can be quite straightforward to assess. The GDPR stipulates that information must be stored and processed in a fair and safe manner. People should only access information and use it when they actually need to do so. Any situation where information has been looked at or used where there is no right for such access and usage can constitute a breach of the GDPR.
Your right to claim data breach compensation
If you have been the victim of an incident where your personal information has been misused or exposed, and you have now lost control over it, you could be entitled to claim compensation. The GDPR can allow the victim of such an incident to recover damages for any distress that they have suffered from that has been caused by the loss of control of their personal information.
Contrary to what some people may think, you do not need to have lost any money or paid out expenses to claim. If these are relevant, these can be considered, and you could look to recover anything classed as out-of-pocket expenses. However, in most cases, people are recovering damages for how the data breach has personally affected them, which comes down to feelings of worry, stress, anger, upset, etc. Sometimes, we classify this as “injury to feelings”.
It is well worth pursuing a data breach compensation claim given that our average settlement is just over £6,000 for damages alone. Claims can be worth more or less than this as it is often based on factors such as the nature of the information involved, how much is affected, the context of the breach, and how this has personally affected you.
The easiest way to find out if you could be eligible to recover compensation now is to contact our team for free, no-obligation legal advice here.
NHS Digital and healthcare privacy breaches
NHS Digital has an important role to protect the information they store and process and prevent any unauthorised access events. The healthcare sector is a significant target for hackers given the nature of the information involved, as they could use it to demand ransoms from people on the threat of exposing it. The impact of a medical data breach can be significant on the victim given that this is precisely the kind of data that we want to maintain strict confidentiality over.
Healthcare data breach incidents can be severe which is why it is always important to instruct specialist privacy lawyers like us when such information has been misused or exposed.