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My Religious Or Political Beliefs Were Exposed In A Data Breach – Can I Claim Compensation?
A religion data breach or political data breach may have exposed your beliefs to unauthorised people. For many of us, our religious or political beliefs are deeply personal. So you may feel that the data breach violated your privacy. Moreover, you may have experienced discrimination after a political or religious beliefs data breach.
Organisations that hold or process personal data should protect it. If your personal data was involved in a breach due to the wrongful conduct of such an organisation, and you suffered psychologically or financially, you could claim.
A guide on claiming after a religion or political data breach
Please do reach out to Legal Expert today to enquire about making a religious or political beliefs data breach claim. We can provide you with an experienced data breach lawyer. Your lawyer will try to value your claim accurately and negotiate with the defendant to ensure you receive the right compensation.
To see if you can begin your claim, call our helpline today on 0800 073 8804. Alternatively, you can use our claim online form.
Select A Section
- What Is A Religion Data Breach?
- How To Report Political Or Religious Belief Data Breaches
- How Employers Could Breach Your Data Privacy
- What Religious Or Political Beliefs Data Could Employers Hold?
- Check How Much You Could Claim If Another Party Breached Your Religious Privacy
- Check If You Could Claim For A Religion Data Breach
What Is A Religion Data Breach?
An organisation may collect personal information about employees or other individuals in some circumstances. A personal data breach is a security incident that means personal data is lost, accessed, changed, destroyed or disclosed unlawfully or accidentally.
A data breach can include the following:
- An organisation sharing personal data without permission or without a lawful basis
- Unauthorised persons accessing your personal data
- A party stealing personal data
Under data privacy laws such as the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), organisations are responsible for safeguarding the personal data they collect. You could claim compensation if the organisation enabled the data breach because of their wrongful conduct. For example, they may have provided substandard cyber security, which meant your personal data was easy for cyber attackers to access your personal data. And as a result of the data breach, if you experienced financial loss or psychological injuries, you could claim.
Special category data is sensitive personal data. For example, it can include religious data and information about people’s philosophical beliefs. Sensitive data can also be information about a person’s sex, age, racial origin or ethnic origin and sexuality. If a religious or political data breach occurs, the victims may be eligible to claim compensation for any harm incurred.
How To Report Political Or Religious Belief Data Breaches
If an organisation discovers that it has breached your personal data, and this risks your rights and freedoms, they should notify you. Moreover, the organisation must report the data breach to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) within 72 hours. The ICO is an independent body that enforces data protection legislation.
But what should you do if you believe you have discovered a religion data breach that affects you? First of all, please raise your concerns with the organisation that breached the data. The organisation may be able to resolve the matter. You can escalate your complaint if you are not satisfied with the response you receive.
What should you do if the organisation that breached your data does not resolve your complaint? You can report the political or religious beliefs data breach to the ICO if they’ve not been made aware of the data breach.
How Employers Could Breach Your Data Privacy
Organisations that may collect information about people’s religious or political beliefs include:
- Survey and market research companies
- University research departments
- Government agencies
- Religious or political organisations
- Employers and trade unions
Let’s look at how an organisation may be responsible for a religion data breach.
Mismanagement Of Data Privacy
The organisation may not have trained their staff to handle sensitive personal data correctly. So, a religious or political beliefs data breach could happen as a result. For example, a receptionist may leave a printed file on a public-facing desk containing special category data. Therefore, members of the public would be able to access the file.
Human Error
Unfortunately, a colleague could unintentionally breach your personal data privacy. For example, an email data breach can happen at work if an HR professional emails private information about your religious beliefs to an unauthorised person. To prevent employer data breaches, organisations should take proper measures, such as investing in training.
Hacking
Unfortunately, hackers may target an organisation. Hackers use various methods to gain unlawful access to a computer system. So, criminals may steal sensitive personal data and hold it to ransom. Or the criminals may blackmail the victims of the data breach.
What Religious Or Political Beliefs Data Could Employers Hold?
An employer has to keep sensitive data about you secure. This includes:
- Your religious beliefs, or lack thereof
- Your political beliefs
- Membership in a political party or organisation
- Information about any religious requirements you may have
Check How Much You Could Claim If Another Party Breached Your Religious Privacy
You might be eligible to claim compensation if you were affected by a politics or religion data breach. Successful claimants can receive compensation for:
- Material damages. You could be compensated for your financial losses incurred due to a data breach. For example, if a fraudster used your personal data to target you for identity theft, you could seek compensation for the financial losses you were unable to recover.
- Non-material damages. You could be compensated for the emotional distress the data breach caused. In some cases, victims of a data breach experience mental health problems, such as anxiety or depression. You can also claim compensation for these psychiatric injuries.
You can use our table below to estimate how much non-material damages compensation you could claim. We have used guidelines provided by the Judicial College to create the compensation amounts in the table. These are for illustrative purposes.
| Type Of Injury | Damages | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Psychiatric Damage – Severe | £51,460 to £108,620 | Victims have a marked problem with social life, work (or education) and relationships. Recovery prognosis is poor. |
| Psychiatric Injuries/Damage – Moderately Severe | £17,900 to £51,460 | Significant difficulties with their social life, education/work and relationships as above. Recovery prognosis is more optimistic. |
| Psychiatric Injuries/Damage – Moderate | £5,500 to £17,900 | Whilst affected in a similar way, this person has markedly improved by the time of any trial. |
| Psychiatric Injuries/Damage – Less Severe | £1,440 to £5,500 | There is a better outlook for recovering and damages may be based on the length of symptoms suffered and how serious they are. |
| PTSD – Severe | £56,180 to £94,470 | As with the most serious category above, all aspects of this person’s life are affected. Injury or damage may be permanent. |
| PTSD – Moderately Severe | £21,730 to £56,180 | This party suffered significant disability and will do so for the significant future. With professional help, they have a better chance of recovering. |
| PTSD – Moderate | £7,680 to £21,730 | Injured parties should largely have recovered. Any symptoms should not be grossly disabling. |
| PTSD – Less Severe | £3,710 to £7,680 | Injured parties will virtually have recovered in a 12 – 24 month time period. |
Data breach solicitors may use these guidelines to help them value your compensation claim. However, the solicitor will consider other factors when they value your claim. So the final settlement you receive may be different to what you see in the table.
For our advisors to value your claim for free, why not get in touch?
Check If You Could Claim For A Religion Data Breach
You might be eligible to claim compensation if a data breach exposed your religious or political beliefs. So, if there is adequate evidence to support your claim, our panel of solicitors can handle your case as a No Win No Fee claim.
If you make a No Win No Fee claim, your solicitor does not charge you an upfront fee. Instead, you pay a success fee if you win. The solicitor deducts the success fee from the compensation payout at a legally capped rate. So, this option may be more affordable in terms of funding the services of a solicitor.
If the claim doesn’t win, you don’t have to pay the success fee at all.
To see if you can begin your No Win No Fee claim, please get in touch with Legal Expert today:
- Call our helpline on 0800 073 8804
- Or complete our claim online form today
- On the other hand, you can chat with an advisor right now using our Live Support widget
Our Data Breach Claims Guides
Please read these guides to discover more about what to do after a data breach.
Housing Association Data Breach Compensation Claims Guide
Comparison Site Data Breach Compensation Claims Guide
I Suffered Stress Because Of A Data Breach. Am I Eligible To Claim Compensation?
The Data Protection Act 2018, which enacted the EU GDPR into UK law
Your data protection rights in the UK
An ICO guide to how political groups are allowed to target you
If you have any questions about claiming after a politics or religion data breach, why not get in touch?
Written by Chelache
Edited by Victorine
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