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Can You Sue A Company For A Data Breach And How Much Compensation Could You Receive?
By Stephen Hudson. Last Updated 21st August 2024. If you’re wondering ‘Can you sue a company for a data breach?’, this guide aims to help you. Personal data is a valuable asset for businesses. Many organisations require personal information to provide a service. A failure to protect such personal data can have serious consequences.
Personal data that has been breached due to security failures or poor data protection processes can have devastating consequences for the individual affected. Cybercrime and human error are among the main causes of data breaches today.
Therefore, if you have suffered financial loss or emotional distress due to a breach of your personal information, you may be eligible to make a claim. Operating on a No Win No Fee basis, our solicitors could support you. To see if you can be connected, contact our advisors today. Call 0800 073 8804 or raise your claim online.
Our advisors are available 24/7 and give free legal advice.
Here’s our quick explainer video on how you can claim compensation:
Select A Section
- Can You Sue A Company For A Data Breach?
- How Could A Data Breach Impact You?
- What Can You Do If You Think A Company Breached Your Data Protection?
- How Much Can You Sue A Company For A Data Breach For?
- No Win No Fee Data Breach Claims
Can You Sue A Company For A Data Breach?
Can you sue a company for a data breach? Yes. If certain criteria are met, you absolutely can sue a company for a breach of your personal data.
According to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s independent body for upholding information rights, a personal data breach occurs when personal data is accidentally or unlawfully altered, lost, or disclosed without authorisation, destroyed, or accessed. This definition, therefore, covers both human error and intentional data breaches.
Personal data is information that could identify who you are, such as your national insurance number or name.
There are 3 parties that need to be considered when discussing data breach claims, these are:
- Data subjects: the living identifiable individuals to whom the personal data relates.
- Data controllers: organisations who decide when, how and why your personal data is to be processed.
- Data processors: external organisations who are contracted to process data on behalf of controllers. It is important to emphasise that not every controller will use external processing services and may choose to process data themselves.
Both data controllers and processors have legal obligations to protect personal data under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. Failing to abide by these laws can result in security incidents where personal data is adversely affected.
The eligibility criteria to begin a data breach claim are as follows:
- A data controller or processor failed to uphold their obligations under data protection law.
- Their failure resulted in a data breach, in which your personal data was affected.
- The personal data breach resulted in you experiencing psychological distress, financial loss or both.
To get a free assessment of your eligibility to claim, or to ask any questions you may have, contact our advisors today using the contact details provided above.
How Could A Data Breach Impact You?
If your personal data is involved in a data breach, then this could potentially have different types of harmful consequences:
- Financial losses – If your personal data is exposed or lost due to a data breach, then this could lead to consequences that cause you to suffer financial losses. For instance, if your credit card information was compromised in a data breach, this could lead to unknown charges being made to that card which could also impact your credit score.
- Psychological harm – The knowledge that your personal data has been breached and could potentially lead to issues such as financial losses or reputational damage can be incredibly stressful. Therefore, you could suffer from a variety of psychological injuries following a personal data breach, such as anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
You may be asking, “Can you sue a company for a data breach?”. If you have suffered financial or mental harm due to a personal data breach that was caused by the organisation’s failings, then you may be able to make a personal data breach claim.
Contact our advisors for free today for more advice about starting a valid data breach claim.
Time Limits For Data Breach Claims
If you are suing for a data breach that compromised your personal data, you must also ensure that you start your claim within the correct time limit.
Generally, you will have 6 years to start a personal data breach claim. This time limit is reduced to one year if you are claiming against a public body.
To find out whether you are within the time limit to start a personal data breach claim, you can contact our team of advisors. They can also offer you free advice and answer any of the questions you may have. Furthermore, if they think you may have a strong case, they could connect you with one of our solicitors.
What Can You Do If You Think A Company Breached Your Data Protection?
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the independent UK body involved in upholding personal information rights. Under the UK GDPR framework, organisations have a duty to report personal data breaches that risk your rights and freedoms to the ICO within 72 hours. A secondary duty is required to inform you of the personal data breach without undue delay. Organisations should have a clear justification for failure to report a personal data breach.
You have various options following a suspected breach:
- Complain to the organisation involved – you should attempt to contact the business where the breach occurred. If you don’t get a satisfactory response or recieve no response you could contact the ICO.
- Contact the ICO – you should inform the ICO of the breach only if the organisation didn’t respond to you satisfactorily. You should do this within 3 months of the organisation’s final response on the matter.
- Contact a UK GDPR claims specialist – you could contact a specialist solicitor to advise you regarding your own unique case. Such a specialist will be able to provide information regarding compensation, help gather evidence and consider the merits of your case.
How Much Can You Sue A Company For A Data Breach For?
Under the UK GDPR, it is possible to seek compensation for two types of damages. Material damage relates to your finances. Therefore, if you have suffered identity theft or your credit score has been affected by a data breach, you could be compensated.
Non-material damage relates to your mental wellbeing. Therefore, if you have suffered harm such as stress, anxiety or even post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) you could be compensated.
Compensation for material damages is variable and depends on the financial losses incurred by an individual. Compensation for non-material damages is also variable but depends on the severity of the emotional damage sustained by an individual.
The compensation table below shows examples of potential awards as outlined in the Judicial College Guidelines’ 16th edition, published in April 2022. Solicitors can use these guidelines when valuing injuries. Please note that the first entry in this table is an estimated figure and is not based on the Judicial College Guidelines.
Compensation Table
Please be advised that this table has been included to act as guidance only.
| Injury | Severity | Potential Compensation |
|---|---|---|
| Very Serious impact to mental health with significant financial losses | Very Serious | Up to £500,00 + |
| General Psychological Damage | Severe (a) | £66,920 to £141,240 |
| Moderately Severe (b) | £23,270 to £66,920 | |
| Moderate (c) | £7,150 to £23,270 | |
| Less Severe (d) | £1,880 to £7,150 | |
| Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder | Severe (a) | £73,050 to £122,850 |
| Moderately Severe (b) | £28,250 to £73,050 | |
| Moderate (c) | £9,980 to £28,250 | |
| Less Severe (d) | £4,820 to £9,980 |
If you’d like our advisors to value your claim for free, why not get in touch?
No Win No Fee Data Breach Claims
If you contact our advisors about your potential data breach claim, they could review your case and determine if it’s valid. If they find it is, then they could put you in touch with one of our solicitors.
Our No Win No Fee solicitors can support a company data breach claim under a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA). When claiming under a CFA, you generally won’t have to pay your solicitor for their services before the claim starts or while it is being processed. You usually also won’t need to pay for their services if the claim fails.
If your claim is a successful one, then your solicitor takes a success fee to cover their payment. This means a small and legally capped percentage of your compensation will be subtracted by your solicitor.
Get in touch with our advisors for free today to ask questions such as “can you sue a company for a data breach?” or to learn more about No Win No Fee solicitors. You can contact them by:
- Calling us on 0800 073 8804
- Using our 24/7 live chat.
- Or by filling out our claim online form.
References
Here are some more of our guides:
- Children in Care Data Breach Claims
- Mortgage Broker Data Breach Claims
- Medical Conditions Data Breach Claims
- Do I need to use data breach solicitors near me? Find out how to find reliable data breach solicitors with our guide.
These external sources could also be useful to you:
- Government advice on personal data breaches
- Guidance on what you can do after a data breach
- Action the ICO has taken
If you have any questions about claiming or want clarity on our answer to ‘Can you sue a company for a date breach?’, just get in touch.
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