NEWS & UPDATES

The Equifax data breach fine issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has hit the maximum limit of £500,000.00.

The 2017 Equifax data breach resulted in some 700,000 UK citizens put at risk from data exposure. In total, around 15 million records were actually compromised.

This was a major breach for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was preventable; taking place because an employee failed to patch a known security vulnerably. Secondly, because the damage could have been lessened had Equifax have had proper systems in place to spot such a breach. Thirdly, because of who Equifax are. This is a company who is a credit-reference agency. The fact that a data breach has happened to them is incredibly worrying.

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We have a legal action under way for NHS Digital data breach compensation because of the 150,000 patients whose opt-out instructions were not honoured.

The patients, who had all registered for a “type 2 Opt-out” of their data being shared for things like auditing, could be entitled to claim for data breach compensation as part of our action. As a result of a coding error in the software used by GPs to record their instructions to op-out resulting in the objections not being recorded and shared properly the patients have had their private and sensitive medical information passed on.

If you have been affected by the issue and you want to claim, we can help.

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Legal claims have been launched as the British Airways data breach revealed last week has hit some 380,000 customers.

Card numbers, expiry dates and security codes (CVV) have been exposed in the attack, together with the personal details of the victims.

This is an incredibly serious data breach that will likely result in a significant fine that could amount to £500m for breaches of the new GDPR that came into force in May 2018. Victims of the British Airways data breach can be eligible to launch a legal case for any financial loss, distress and inconvenience caused with us as well.

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Data breach costs go way beyond the money an organisation needs to pay in fines and claims. Consumer trust and reputational damage can be just as costly.

With data breaches constantly in the news, we’ve never been more aware of the impact they have, with practically most people nowadays impacted by at least one breach out there. The numbers of victims in some of the big breaches have hit the millions, and when it comes to consumer confidence and the reputation of an organisation who suffers a breach, there are trends to be assessed.

Trust and reputational data breach costs can be the real killer in the long-term.

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A key question right now is whether there is a Ticketmaster GDPR fine on the horizon. With the Ticketmaster data breach being the big data news recently, what punishments are they set to face?

We’ve already taken cases on for victims of the Ticketmaster data breach, and although any fine or penalty issued by the UK’s data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), is independent of the legal action we’re taking, we’re closely monitoring the ICO developments.

Given the dates that the data was exposed, they could be set for a GDPR fine, and we think this would be justified.

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The Ticketmaster data breach may well be this year’s big data breach incident. This week, Ticketmaster reached out to customers and admitted a huge data breach potentially affecting thousands of people.

It’s understood that the Ticketmaster data breach stems from a third-party security breach at a supplier. They say that malicious software was found on a “customer support product” hosted by a company named Inbenta Technologies.

People who used the service between February 2018 and June 2018 may be affected, and the nature of the data compromised in this breach is serious.

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It isn’t just data from hacks and breaches that can give a criminal enough information to scam you; it can also be the wealth of data on social media platforms like Facebook that they use as well.

Sometimes, for a person to become a victim of fraud or identity theft, it can come down to a case of a cyber-criminal being able to obtain enough information about a person from various sources. One source could be from a hack or breach – which could from large-scale breaches such as telecommunications providers or dating websites. This can then be combined with another data source which we willingly put out there on the internet for all to see… On social media sites for example.
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If a company sends an email that is intended for you, but it goes to someone else’s email address then this is a data protection breach if the blame is on the company.

If the company has mixed up email addresses and sent your correspondence to another customer, or perhaps they noted the incorrect email address when you provided it to them; these are the scenarios for breaches.

But, what about compensation claims in these kinds of scenarios?
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U.S. District Judge, Lucy Koh, has said Yahoo must face huge lawsuits brought against them on behalf of over a billion individuals who had their personal data compromised in the well-reported Yahoo breaches.

Verizon communications acquired Yahoo for $4.76 billion in June in a bid to limit liability, and contended that victims didn’t have any legal standing to sue. Judge Koh rejected this over a 93-page decision and held that victims who had their personal data breached by Yahoo’s apparent multiple failures as a data controller could pursue breach of contract as well as unfair competition.
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In recent years, hacks and leaks have increased at an extraordinary rate. Although most data breaches still occur within the healthcare sector, the utilities sector remains one of the biggest culprits as well. The TalkTalk data hack last year is still fresh in our minds, and we’re assisting people making claims off the back of that particular hack.

Another one was the 2015 British Gas leak where the email addresses and passwords of 2,200 of its customers appeared online.
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