How To Claim If You Got A Notice Letter About A UK GDPR Data Breach

By Lewis Aaliyah. Last Updated 3rd February 2023. If you receive a notice letter about a UK GDPR data breach, you may wonder what steps you could take next. This letter may have been sent physically in the post or electronically via email from the organisation responsible for the data breach. You may also be wondering how much compensation you could receive due to a personal data breach.

Notice letter about a UK GDPR data breach

Notice letter about a UK GDPR data breach claims

Throughout this guide, we will discuss what breaches should be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and how quickly an organisation should inform you of a personal data breach. Furthermore, we will share some guideline personal data breach compensation figures and explain how data breach compensation is calculated. Finally, we will explore how a solicitor from our panel could help you begin your claim.

You can contact our advisors if you still have questions about making a personal data breach claim. They are available to help you with free legal advice 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can:

Select A Section

  1. What Is A Notice Letter About A UK GDPR Data Breach?
  2. What Breaches Should Be Reported To The ICO?
  3. When Should You Receive A Notice Letter About A UK GDPR Data Breach?
  4. How Quickly Should Data Breaches Be Reported?
  5. Data Protection Breach Compensation Calculator
  6. Contact Us If You Received A Notice Letter About A UK GDPR Data Breach

What Is A Notice Letter About A UK GDPR Data Breach?

A notice letter about a UK GDPR data breach is a piece of communication that informs you that your personal data has been exposed in a data breach. A data breach is a security incident that threatens your personal data’s availability, confidentiality or integrity.

Personal data is any information that can be used to identify you, either alone or with other information. This can include information such as your name, phone number, and email address.

Data controllers and data processors must protect your personal data when handling it. A data controller decides how and why your data is processed, while a data processor can be appointed to act on their behalf.

The UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) outlines the responsibilities for processing the personal data of UK residents. The UK GDPR, alongside the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA), sets out the principles and regulations that organisations must follow when handling personal data.

Data controllers and processors must adhere to data protection laws. If they don’t, and you suffer harm as a result of a personal data breach that occurs as a result of this, you may be able to claim.

To learn more about whether you could be eligible to make a personal data breach claim, contact our advisors today.

What Is A Data Breach In The UK?

Are you wondering, ‘what is a data breach in the UK?’. A personal data breach is defined by the ICO as a security incident that results in your personal data being accidentally or unlawfully:

  • Accessed
  • Altercated
  • Destroyed
  • Disclosed
  • Lost

Subsequently, the availability, confidentiality and integrity of your personal data is affected. As a result of the data breach, you may experience mental health harm or incur financial losses. If this occurs, you may be eligible to claim data breach compensation.

You might also be thinking, ‘what happens if UK GDPR is breached?’. Continue reading to find out more. Alternatively, speak to us at any time for free no-obligation legal advice.

What Breaches Should Be Reported To The ICO?

According to the ICO, an organisation only needs to report a data breach to them if the data breach poses a risk to the data subject’s rights and freedoms. In this case, the breach must be reported to the ICO within 72 hours, and the data subject must be informed without undue delay.

If you’re worried that your personal data has been exposed in a UK GDPR data breach, you can contact the organisation with your concerns. They should be able to confirm if a breach has occurred and, if so, what information was impacted.

Contact our advisors on the steps to take next after you have received a notice letter about a UK GDPR breach.

When Should You Receive A Notice Letter About A UK GDPR Data Breach?

As we mentioned above, an organisation must inform you of a personal data breach without undue delay if it could affect your rights or freedoms. However, you may still be informed even if the breach does not affect these things.

Some examples of data breaches that you could be informed about include:

  • Your doctor posts a copy of your medical records to the wrong postal address, despite having the right address on file. The person who receives it isn’t authorised to access your personal data, but now can.
  • Your employer emails your information regarding your salary to the wrong email address due to a spelling error. This person can now access your personal data even though they aren’t authorised to.
  • A cyberattack happened at a hotel you stayed at. The hacker manages to gain your personal data from the hotel’s systems, including your debit card and name. This breach was possible because the hotel failed to keep its security systems up to date.

Our advisors can tell you if you could be eligible to make a personal data breach claim when you get in touch today.

How Quickly Should Data Breaches Be Reported?

Organisations must report any data breach that threatens the rights of the data subject to the ICO within 72 hours. Alongside this, they must inform you without undue delay.

An organisation is not obligated to inform you of a data breach if they can prove that your rights and freedoms will not be threatened by the incident.

If you have received a notice letter about a UK GDPR data breach, you could request an investigation by the ICO to look into the data breach. They cannot provide compensation, but they may impose a fine if the organisation is found to be in breach of data protection law.

However, you can only report a data breach to the ICO if it’s within three months of your last meaningful communication with the organisation. If you wait longer than this to report the issue, they may not investigate.

Contact our advisors today to find out more about when a data breach should be reported.

Data Protection Breach Compensation Calculator

When you make a personal data breach claim, you can claim for material damage and non-material damage.

Material damage relates to the financial suffering and losses caused by the data breach. For example, a significant amount of money could be stolen from your account or charged to your credit card after your personal data was exposed in a breach. Keeping evidence of these losses can help strengthen your claim.

Non-material damage includes the psychological harm you have encountered due to the data breach (such as. anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stress etc.) In the past, in order to make a claim for non-material damage, you would also have to have experienced financial losses. However, the Court of Appeal ruling in Vidal-Hall and Others v Google Inc (2015) states that you can now claim for non-material damage without having lost out on money.

Below, we have included a compensation table of guideline figures for non-material damage awards. These figures correspond with the latest Judicial College Guidelines (JCG), published in April 2022. This publication is used to help legal professionals value claims.

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Injury Severity/Notes Amount
Psychological Harm Severe – Coping with work and life will come with significant issues. Poor prognosis. £54,830 – £115,730
Psychological Harm Moderately Severe – Struggle coping with work and life and will still come with issues, but with a much more optimistic prognosis than in cases that are more severe. £19,070 – £54,830
Psychological Harm Moderate – Whilst the person struggles to cope with work and life and will experience future vulnerability, there will have been marked improvement made and a positive prognosis. £5,860 – £19,070
Psychological Harm Less Severe – Will consider the time period the person suffers and the extent to which sleep and daily activities were impacted by the mental injuries sustained. £1,540 – £5,860
PTSD Severe – The person will suffer permanent effects, stopping them from functioning the same way they did before the traumatic incident happened. £59,860 – £100,670
PTSD Moderately Severe – Will be a better prognosis with the hope of some recovery with professional help. But, the person will still likely have significant disabilities for some time. £23,150 – £59,860
PTSD Moderate – The person will have recovered largely. Continuing symptoms will not cause gross disability. £8,180 – £23,150
PTSD Less Severe – The person will virtually experience a full recovery in around 1 to two years. Only minor symptoms will persist after this period. £3,950 – £8,180

Contact our advisors for free legal advice if you have received a notice letter about a UK GDPR data breach. They can provide a free estimate of what your claim could be worth.

Contact Us If You Received A Notice Letter About A UK GDPR Data Breach

Our panel of solicitors can help to guide you through your claim; furthermore, you can fund their work through a No Win No Fee arrangement. Under an arrangement such as a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA), which is a common form of No Win No Fee agreement, you can receive legal representation without an upfront or ongoing fee.

Should your claim be successful, you will pay a success fee. This is a small percentage of your compensation subject to a legal cap. However, if your claim does not succeed, you will not pay this fee to your solicitor.

To learn how an expert solicitor from our panel could help you, get in touch with our team today. You can:

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