The startling fact is that 99% of UK citizens have had the misfortune of a data breach. What is unfortunate is that only half of them know that they can claim thousands in compensation by following due process.
We live in a data-driven world today. Most of us go online daily and share our data with different kinds of websites. A data breach is a very real stress that each of us faces on a daily basis. We can only keep our fingers crossed with a soft prayer on our lips that our personal data shared with either government websites or private websites is safe from hackers and not subject to misuse.
Such online data breaches have increased every year and so have the number of persons who have been impacted by it. What is important is that many big companies also have been affected by large scale data breaches. This has resulted in large compensation payouts for data breach victims.
Data Breach in Virgin Media
Customers of Virgin Media had to endure a massive data breach in March 2020. What happened as a result was that the personal details of almost 900,000 customers were left open for 10 months. The data breach in Virgin Media’s marketing database thankfully did not have any passwords. But imagine this is what happened to the second-biggest broadband provider of Britain, and 15 per cent of the UK’s fixed-line customers as a result of negligence.
According to IBM research, the average cost of the distressful and anxious data breach has increased to nearly £2.7 million in the UK. As to the reputational harm such cause to the company? Let’s not talk about it today.
Know About GDPR Data Breach Compensation Claim
You should know that a data breach claim is a claim that is made against an individual or an entity. It can also be made against a number of defendants. In your claim, you can state that the defendant is the responsible party for the exposure of your sensitive personal information.
The law does allow you to make a claim for loss of money and also for suffering from distress and anxiety.
How Much Compensation Can You Receive
The amount of compensation you can receive as a result of a its depends on the type of breach and the judgment given by the court.
Typical ranges of compensation can be:
£900 – £25,700
This range is the lowest that you can hope to get if there is a mild breach of personal data. Such data would include your name, date of birth, email address and home address.
£25,700 – £42,900
This is the range you can hope for if this has resulted in physical or mental disease for you. Proper evidence of your medical condition and any financial loss would be required here.
The exact compensation for a data breach depends on the court. The court may even deny compensation if it observes that sufficient evidence has not been provided by you.
The recommended course of action is that you get in touch with an independent legal entity who can guide you on the best course to take for getting data breach compensation.
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