Welcome To The Data Leak Lawyers Blog

Huge Data Breach hits Myspace and Tumblr

Literally hundreds of millions of Myspace and Tumblr user account details, reportedly hacked a few years ago, have surfaced for sale on the dark web.

News of the incident comes just days after the scale of the 2012 LinkedIn hack widened when millions of account details from the previous hack appeared online for sale, and security experts believe there may be a link given data from separate historic hacks is being put up for sale in such a short period of time.

News of this breach has increased fears for online safety with experts suggesting more may be on the way.
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Research shows victims hold the organisations primarily responsible for data leaks

Research conducted by ResearchBods found that consumers put the responsibility for data leaks, breaches, and hacks firmly on the shoulders of the organisations.

The study results showed that people blame the organisations far more than the hackers, and in terms of how the law actually works, it’s fair to say that the legal responsibility does weigh heavily on organisation (as Data Controllers) anyway.

The excuse “oh, but we were hacked!” is not one that will save an organisation from criminal or civil prosecution!
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Is there any such thing as a “non-serious” data breach?

There are differing levels in terms of severity of data leaks – it could be fair comment to say that a person’s full name being leaked is perhaps not as dangerous as a person’s bank account details being leaked. But it does depend on other factors, like whether a leak of a name is related to a sensitive subject; such as the full name of someone with a certain medical condition, as an example.

If that happens then just a name can be very serious indeed, but in an age where leaks are happening around the world all of the time – and we literally mean, ALL of the time – we ask the question: is there really such thing as a “non-serious” data breach?
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Check Point Claims Limited fined £250,000 for serious data protection breaches

Nuisance calls – the bane of many people’s lives!

Thankfully the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) can fine and prosecute organisations for failing to adhere to regulations for marketing calls, and in this example, Check Point Claims Limited has been fined a huge £250,000.00 for failing to comply with the law.

They reportedly made a staggering 17.5 MILLION nuisance calls asking if people had suffered hearing loss at work.
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Data breach compensation

You may not know this but you are entitled to claim for data breach compensation if you are the victim of a data breach. You can claim data breach compensation from organisations leaking your information (like a public service or your employer); from organisations sharing your information without consent; or even from hacks, as examples.

In the digital age we live in, where organisations hold an astounding wealth of information about us, we’re all at risk of our right to privacy being breached, and at risk of scams and frauds.

So what can you claim for in terms of data breach compensation, and on what basis do you claim?
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LinkedIn’s 2012 leak has just gone from 6.5 million affected users to 100 million!

Back in 2012, LinkedIn suffered a major hack with a reported 6.5 million users affected. Hacked data included user information – email addresses and partial passwords – and LinkedIn users were told back in 2012 to change their passwords.

Four years on and more account details, allegedly from the same 2012 hack, have now emerged online, and the figure we’re talking about is now 117 million.
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Kiddicare customer data breach

The details of almost 800,000 customers of UK baby and child retailer Kiddicare have been stolen from a version of their website it had been using for testing.

Customers reported receiving suspicious messages that had not been sent by Kiddicare, and following an investigation, the data breach was linked back to a test website they had used which led to customer data being compromised.

The company has reported itself to the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) in light of what has happened.
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Millions of email accounts hacked by Russian hacker; or not?

Last week reports emerged that 272 million email accounts had been put up for sale on the dark web by a Russian hacker.

It spread an understandable wave of panic across the world as people scoured the internet to find out if their account had been compromised.

However, digital security experts now believe that the hack may have been a fake as part of a publicity stunt launched by the researcher who claimed to have discovered it.
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56 Dean Street Clinic Fined £180,000 by ICO; a move welcomed by our lawyers leading the fight for justice

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has concluded its investigations in to the 56 Dean Street Clinic data leak that saw the confidential HIV status of over 700 patients inadvertently leaked by email.

Our lawyers fighting for justice have welcomed the move by the ICO to fine the clinic following the breach. We’ve taken on a large number of cases since the leak, and we’re still taking instructions now (with the latest few being this week).
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Blackpool NHS Fined £185,000 for serious Data Protection Breach

Personal and sensitive data of thousands of employees working for Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was inadvertently posted online.

The discovery was made on 30^th January 2015 and reportedly affects more than 6,500 employees when a spreadsheet containing highly confidential information was published online back in March 2014.

The data included names, national insurance numbers, birth dates, religious beliefs, pay scales, disability statuses, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

This is a serious breach of data protection and one of the worst we have ever seen here in the UK.
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