Compensation for council cyberattacks

Victims can be eligible to claim compensation for council cyberattacks, recovering damages for any distress caused by the loss of control of their personal information.

Victims may also be eligible to receive damages for any losses and expenses incurred, but you can just claim for the distress alone.

It is not nice to know that our personal information is in the hands of criminals, and this is something that you could pursue damages for. Your Lawyers is a leading, experienced firm of privacy compensation specialists. For eligible clients, we are proud to be able to offer No Win, No Fee legal representation.

Claim compensation for council cyberattacks

You could be entitled to claim compensation for council cyberattacks. The GDPR can allow you to recover damages for any distress that has been caused by the loss of control of your personal information.

Councils and the local authorities often store and process a significant wealth of personal and private information. This can include:

• Personal and contact details for residents in an area.
• Financial and banking information used for council tax purposes.
• Medical information for any social care needs or for matters such as blue badge permits.
• Sensitive domestic details in relation to social services that are within the remit of local authorities.

It could only take one weakness that hackers could exploit to then harvest a wealth of very personal and sensitive information. Victims of such an attack could be eligible to claim compensation if procedures and defences in place were not adequate enough to protect people’s information. This can amount to a breach of the GDPR and can pave the way for victims to pursue damages.

Learning from mistakes

It is absolutely essential that councils and local authority agencies that work is outsourced to learn from past mistakes. This includes those that are close to home, within their industry, or even more general in nature.

A lot of this is all about being prepared. This means ensuring that you are well protected against cyberattacks, and it also means having clear plans in place in the event that a cyberattack becomes a real threat.

Last year, it was reported that East Sussex County Council had been working on making sure they were ready in the event of a cyberattack. Knowing the impact that has taken place when other councils have been hit by severe cyberattacks should act as a trigger for organisations to make sure they are prepared to stop similar events taking place and affecting them.

With reference to this particular story we had seen in the media about East Sussex County Council, it was good to note media coverage about preventing cyberattacks as opposed to the usual reporting of one that has taken place. It is normally a case of us discussing compensation for council cyberattacks in the aftermath of an event having already occurred.

Local authority cyberattack compensation claims

Local authority cyberattacks can lead to significant information exposure, resulting in lots of people suffering through personal and sensitive data breaches. Given the nature of the data that can be affected, it can often be the case that the victims can be significantly affected.

The GDPR can entitle you to claim compensation for council cyberattacks. Our team is happy to provide free, no-obligation legal advice here now.

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