What can you do about a leak of confidential records?

If you have been the victim of an incident where there has been a leak of confidential records, you may be entitled to make a claim for compensation on a No Win, No Fee basis.

There are many ways it can happen, from medical data breach claims to those involving confidential financial data with your local council. It may even involve employment records or domestic data in educational records.

You have rights, and the law is on your side. If you have suffered as a result of your confidential information being subject to a data leak, here’s how we may be able to help you. As a leading firm of consumer action and data breach compensation experts, we are your voice for justice.

Compensation after a leak of confidential records

You may be entitled to make a claim for data breach compensation as a victim of an incident where there has been a leak of confidential records.

When you make a legal case, there are usually two elements to a claim which are:

• General Damages: for the distress and general suffering;
• Special Damages: for financial losses and expenses.

Importantly, you do not have to have suffered an actual financial loss to be able to make a claim. The law recognises that victims can be entitled to claim damages for the distress caused by the loss of control of your personal information. Generally speaking, the worse the distress, the more a case could be worth. We  can assess data breach compensation pay-outs for distress based on factors that can include:

• What kind of information is involved;
• How much data has been leaked;
• Who data has been leaked to;
• The individual impact, which can differ from person to person.

Medical data breaches

Many incidents where there has been a leak of confidential records, and the victim makes a claim, are for medical data leak compensation cases.

Some of the most confidential, personal and sensitive data that there is includes medical information. It’s exactly the kind of data that we don’t other people to know about, and a huge number of the individual cases and group action claims we’re involved with involve medical data. In fact, one of the first compensation actions we launched way back in 2015 was for the infamous 56 Dean Street Clinic leak. This resulted in almost 800 users of HIV services at the clinic having their medical status disclosed to each other.

Our experience when it comes to representing victims for serious medical data claims is significant. When information like medical or clinic records are leaked, exposed or misused, victims can be entitled to make a claim with us. We may also be able to offer No Win, No Fee representation.

Other confidential data breaches

There are plenty of ways in which there can be a leak of confidential records, and these may also include:

• Employment information, including earnings and tax data;
• General financial information like earnings, benefit payment, account balances or receipts;
• Education information, which may include domestic data for mitigation or record-keeping needs;
• Social and family information held by local councils and government authorities.

In any of these circumstances, you may be eligible to make a claim.

Council data breach compensation claims can often have a serious impact on the victim as these kinds of authorities tend to hold a wealth of personal data about a lot of people. Whatever has happened to you, you can speak to our team today for free, no-obligation advice about whether we can represent you for a legal case.

We’re here to help.

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