Personally identifiable information: breach and leak claims

If personally identifiable information has been involved in a breach or a leak, the victim could be entitled to recover compensation for any distress caused by the loss of control of their personal information.

You can read on for a little advice, or feel free to contact our team now for a free, no-obligation chat about what has happened and whether we can help you today.

Importance of protecting personally identifiable information

The importance of protecting personally identifiable information cannot be understated. When such information is leaked or exposed, it can reveal the identity of the data subject which, in some cases, could cause significant distress.

In many instances, personally identifiable information can also come down to a matter of context in which the breach has happened. Here are two simple examples: in one, a council sends out an email that relates to generic advice that any citizen could receive, and they accidentally send it to all the recipients using the “CC” function. This now means that a large number of people know each other’s email addresses and names, but the context of the breach is not necessarily something too concerning for some people. Ultimately, all it means is that those who are involved in the data breach all live in a particular area.

Now let’s take the same example again, except the recipients of the email are those who are signed up to a healthcare service in relation to their HIV status. The context of this breach now means that all those who received the email know that those included in the email are likely to be suffering from HIV. An HIV status is clearly something that people want to maintain strict confidentiality over.

The reason why we use the latter example is because this has actually happened. The 56 Dean Street Clinic leak was one of the worst NHS privacy leaks to have ever taken place. We represented victims suffering as a result of the data breach and helped them to claim considerable compensation due to the significant distress they suffered from when their HIV status was leaked.

Claiming compensation for data breaches and leaks

If your personally identifiable information has been involved in a breach or a leak, the GDPR could entitle you to recover compensation for any distress that you suffer from that is caused by the loss of control of your personal information. We can assess what has happened to you and, if we believe that there is a case to pursue, we may be able to represent you on a No Win, No Fee basis.

You could be eligible to recover thousands of pounds just for the distress that you suffer that has been caused by what has happened. The best place to start is to contact our team for a free, no-obligation claims assessment here now.

Expert data protection claim solicitors

We are leading, expert Data Protection Claim Solicitors representing thousands of people who are engaged in data breach compensation claims, both in individual cases and in group and multi-party cases. We have already recovered over £1m in damages in mostly singular cases, and we are running over 60 group and multi-party actions in addition to the individual claims we pursue.

We have been doing this a lot longer than many of the other law firms out there, so we know how to pursue a case to make sure that we can recover the maximum compensation possible.

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