Who is at Fault for a Data Breach?

If you can prove that somebody else is at fault for a data breach, you could be eligible to claim compensation now in accordance with the GDPR. We may be able to represent you for case now on a No Win, No Fee basis.

We are Your Lawyers – The Data Leak Lawyers. We are a leading firm of privacy compensation experts. We have been representing thousands of people for cases for almost a decade now, which means that we have unrivalled experience in comparison to a lot of other firms who only recently started looking into privacy claims matters.

You can speak to our team for free, no-obligation legal advice here now.

Proving who is at fault for a data breach

Proving who is at fault for a data breach will usually come down to looking at exactly how your information has been misused and/or exposed. If the fault lies with an organisation or an employee of an organisation, that is where you could prove fault for a data breach where it stems from some form of negligence.

Some simple examples can include:

• Information being accidentally leaked online or sent to the wrong person.
• Data disclosed to somebody intentionally without proper and informed consent from you.
• Employees accessing or processing information when they have no right, authority or reason to do so.
• Your data being exposed in a cyberattack where an organisation that was hit by the hack could – and should – have done more to have prevented the incident taking place.

The above examples are fairly self-explanatory, although the latter one is one we can look at more as it can be a bit more complicated. Whilst hackers are ultimately responsible for committing a cyberattack, the GDPR puts a duty on organisations to make sure that they have strong enough defences to protect against such attacks taking place. If an organisation’s cybersecurity was not adequate enough to have prevented information from being exposed in a cyberattack, they can be negligent for failing to protect your information. Where this is the case, you can prove fault for a data breach that way.

Your legal right to claim compensation

If you can establish that your information has been misused and/or exposed as a result of some form of negligence, the GDPR can entitle you to claim compensation. You may be eligible to receive damages for any distress that you have suffered from that has been caused by the loss of control of your personal information, given the law can entitle you to have control over who knows what about you. It is recognised that we may suffer from upset, anger, worry, stress, and anxiety over what might happen now we no longer have control over our information. This is what the GDPR may entitle you to recover damages for.

If you suffered any losses or expenses then these could be factored into a claim as well, but you can just claim for the distress alone and most people will claim for distress and nothing more. When it comes to data breach compensation amounts and pay-outs for distress alone, claims can easily settle for a few thousand pounds. Generally speaking, the more you suffer, the more the case could be worth. Our average settlement as of 2022 still stands at just over £6,000 pounds in damages per claimant.

Whether your claim could be worth more or less than this average amount could entirely depend on the individual circumstances, but this may give you some idea as to what you could potentially be looking at.

Data breach legal advice now

You can access specialist data breach legal advice from our expert team here now. We can have a free, no-obligation chat about what has happened to you and we can usually let you know quickly if we can help you.

If we can help you, you may be able to benefit from our No Win, No Fee legal representation.

HMRC Data Breaches – Claim Compensation

Pursuing a Data Breach Case with Our Leading Experts