We've been featured in:
How To Make An Anxiety Data Breach Claim
By Cat Way. Last Updated March 2024. This guide will explain how to make an anxiety data breach claim. If you become a data breach victim because your personal and sensitive information has been breached this can cause not only financial losses but also mental suffering. Consequently, some victims of a data breach experience emotional distress or psychiatric injuries, such as anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this guide, we will explain who could be eligible to make a compensation claim for anxiety following a personal data breach.
Anxiety data breach claims guide
This guide will look at what makes a data breach victim eligible to claim compensation. Moreover, we will look at how a data breach can affect a person’s mental health and general wellbeing. And we will explain how to claim compensation for psychological harm caused by a data breach.
Please get in touch with us today to begin your data breach claim.
- Call our helpline on 0800 073 8804
- Enquire about making your claim online
Select A Section
- What Is An Anxiety Data Breach Claim?
- Could A Data Breach Cause Anxiety?
- Anxiety And Psychological Injuries
- How To Make An Anxiety Data Breach Claim
- Anxiety Data Breach Claim Calculator
- Begin Your Anxiety Data Breach Claim
What Is An Anxiety Data Breach Claim?
Organisations may collect personal data from stakeholders. Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which runs alongside the Data Protection Act 201, organisations are obliged to protect the personal data they collect. For example, organisations should train their employees to handle data safely. Moreover, organisations should have appropriate security measures to protect their databases.
A personal data breach is a security issue that compromises personal information. It could happen in the following ways:
- The organisation exposes or leaks personal data
- Personal data is lost or stolen
- The organisation destroys, encrypts or alters the personal data accidentally or deliberately
- An employee discloses personal data without a lawful basis
- Or the organisation gives the wrong person access to the data
Victims of a data breach can claim compensation if an organisation did not do enough to protect the personal data they hold. If the company did all they could to keep this information confidential but a data breach happened anyway a claim is unlikely.
The data subject will need to have suffered emotional distress or psychiatric injuries or financial losses as a result. For example, an anxiety data breach claim can be made if the claimant developed an anxiety disorder because of a data breach.
To claim compensation for a data breach that caused anxiety or stress, please contact Legal Expert today.
Could A Data Breach Cause Anxiety?
As we have mentioned, data breaches can expose information that is not only private and confidential but data that is sensitive. Special category data, such as a person’s religious beliefs, medical information, and political beliefs all need extra protection when being processed by a data controller or data processor.
If a personal data breach was to expose personal medical information or sexuality then a person could go on to suffer not only emotional distress but this could very seriously lead to psychological harm.
Data breaches can also be traumatic if they put an at-risk person in danger. For example, a social services data breach may leak information about an abuse victim’s home address. Therefore the person’s abuser may use the information to access the victim’s home, compromising their safety. Consequently, the person may experience high-stress levels because of the data breach.
In response to a distressing data breach, the data subject may develop psychiatric injuries, including:
- Generalised Anxiety Disorder
- Clinical depression
- Symptoms of PTSD
- Other mental illnesses
How To Make An Anxiety Data Breach Claim
After a data breach, you may have experienced anxiety or other mental illness problems. You can make an anxiety data breach claim under the following circumstances:
- Firstly, an organisation breached your personal data, intentionally or unintentionally.
- Also, the organisation must have failed to protect the data they had collected from you. For example, the organisation did not have an up to date cyber security system. So, the organisation failed to prevent a hacking attack in which criminals stole your data.
- Consequently, you suffered emotional distress or psychiatric injuries, such as anxiety, or financial losses.
If an organisation breaches your personal data and it affects your rights and freedoms they should notify you and report the incident to the ICO. On the other hand, if you believe you have discovered a personal data breach, please report the incident to the organisation.
However, if you are not happy with the way the data controller is handling the breach you can report the data breach incident to the ICO within three months of your last meaningful contact with the organisation’s Data Protection Officer if you are not satisfied with the progress made.
Anxiety Data Breach Claim Calculator
If your anxiety data breach claim is successful you could be awarded up to two different types of data breach compensation. We have provided this table below that looks at one type of data breach compensation – non-martial damages.
| Injury Type And Level | About The Injuries | Estimated Compensation |
|---|---|---|
| Severe – Psychiatric Damage (Generally) | The psychiatric injury may affect all parts of this person’s life. There might be a serious impact on the person’s ability to cope with work, education as well as relationships. | £51,460 – £108,620 |
| Moderately severe – Psychiatric Damage (Generally) | Whilst this person may be affected in a way that is similar to the most serious cases, they will have a better prognosis for recovery. | £17,900 – £51,460 |
| Moderate – Psychiatric Damage (Generally) | The impact on the claimant will again be lesser than above but could still impact relationships, education, work or social life. | £5,500 – £17,900 |
| Less Severe – Psychiatric Damage (Generally) | Compensation is affected by things such as how severe the initial symptoms were and how long these lasted for. | £1,440 – £5,500 |
| Severe – PTSD | Severe cases of PTSD could result in permanent symptoms. | £56,180 – £94,470 |
| Moderately Severe – PTSD | Distinct from the most serious of cases, there is a better prognosis. The effects could still case significant disabilities in this person for the foreseeable future. | £21,730 – £56,180 |
| Moderate – PTSD | Any current symptoms are not be severely disabling and the person should be largely recovered. | £7,680 – £21,730 |
| Less Severe – PTSD | Claimants should be mostly recovered. This will have happened in 1 – 2 years of the injury happening. | £3,710 – £7,680 |
We used guidelines from the Judicial College to create this advisory information on how much you can claim for emotional distress or a psychiatric injury. Data breach solicitors use these guidelines to value a claim.
However, many factors will determine how much your compensation claim may be worth. So please call our data breach claims helpline, and we can help you estimate what your compensation payment could be.
If your claim for anxiety caused by a data breach is successful, you can receive up to two heads of claim:
- Material damages compensate you for any financial losses the data breach caused. For example, if criminals targeted you for online fraud after the data breach, you may have eligibility claim back these losses.
- Non-material damages are compensation for psychiatric injuries such as PTSD, or emotional distress that the data breach caused.
Begin Your Anxiety Data Breach Claim
If you are ready to start your claim for anxiety after a data breach, one of our solicitors may be able to help you, provided you have a valid case. With years of legal experience, our solicitors can help you support your personal data breach claim, answer any questions you may have, and guide you through the claims process under a No Win No Fee agreement.
Our solicitors offer their services under a No Win No Fee arrangement known as a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA). Under this kind of agreement, your solicitor will work on your claim without taking any upfront or ongoing fees. Similarly, if your claim fails, your solicitor won’t take a fee for their work.
Should your claim succeed, your solicitor will take a small, legally-capped percentage of your compensation as their success fee. This legal cap helps to ensure that you keep the majority of your settlement.
For more information on how one of our solicitors could help you claim personal data breach compensation, contact our team of advisors today. They can help you identify whether your personal data breach claim is valid, and may also connect you with a solicitor from our panel. To get started:
- Call on 0800 073 8804
- Start your claim online
- Use the live chat feature
Related Data Breach Resources
Please read these online guides if you want to know more about making a data breach compensation claim.
- I suffered from stress due to a data breach, could I claim compensation? Find out with our helpful guide.
- I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder After A Data Breach, Can I Claim? Our guide offers more information.
- If your Medical Records Have Been Stolen, you may be wondering if you can make a claim. Learn more about the personal data breach claims process with our helpful guide.
External resources:
- An ICO guide to identity theft
- An ICO guide to claiming compensation for a data breach
- Your data protection rights
We appreciate you reading our guide to anxiety data breach claims.
Guide By Chelache
Edited By Melissa.
Meet The Team
Our Top Legal Guides
