Victim Support Data Breach - When Could You Claim Compensation?

Victim Support Data Breach – When Could You Claim Compensation?

This guide will look at the steps you could take should a Victim Support data breach occur, and your personal data has been involved.

Victim Support is a charity which offers support to victims of crimes. Charities like these may need to collect and use personal data to offer their services correctly. It is vital that data controllers, usually organisations that have control over the processing of such data, and data processors, third parties that may be used to process the data, adhere to data protection laws at all times.

If you have been affected by a data breach, you might be eligible to claim compensation. Advice can offer you free legal advice about claiming. Furthermore, if there is enough evidence to support your claim, we can appoint a knowledgeable solicitor from our panel to work on your claim.

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Select A Section

What Could Be A Victim Support Data Breach?
If A Victim Support Data Breach Occurred, What Data Could Be Affected?
How Could Data Breaches Impact Victims?
How To Prevent A Data Protection Breach
What Could You Claim If Impacted By A Data Breach?
Could A No Win No Fee Solicitor Provide Advice If A Victim Support Data Breach Took Place

What Could Be A Victim Support Data Breach?

A data breach is a security incident that compromises personal data protection. The UK General Data Protection Regulation UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 DPA protect personal data that identifies an individual. So, organisations are legally obligated to protect this information.

A charity data breach could happen for different reasons. Some data breaches are deliberate, like cyber-attacks and phishing scams, while others can be accidental and caused by human error. If personally identifiable data is stolen, altered, lost, destroyed, accessed without authority or disclosed accidentally or without a lawful basis, then said data has been breached.

If A Victim Support Data Breach Occurred, What Data Could Be Affected?

Data protection laws protect personal data and personally sensitive data. Below we have given examples of each of these categories.

What is personal data?

A living person’s name
Address
Contact telephone numbers
DOB
National Insurance Number
Bank Account Details
Credit and Debit Card Details

So what is special category data? Special category data is a type of personal data that is considered to be of a sensitive nature, so requires extra protection.

Personal data relating to ethnicity and ethnic origin
Political opinions
Sex life and sexual orientation.
Gnome and biometric data
Religious or philosophical beliefs
Health data
And trade union status

But how can this data be breached?

An employee discloses information about a person without a lawful basis.
An employee sends data to the wrong recipient via text, email or post. Therefore unauthorised persons can view your personal data.
Cybercriminals carry out hacking attacks. The hacking group steals information from the database to sell the data.
A mass email is sent, but the sender fails to enter the email addresses into the Bcc field.

If a Victim Support data breach were to occur, it could impact those whose information was breached in different ways. In the next section, we look at what impacts data breaches can have on data subjects.

How Could Data Breaches Impact Victims?

Personal data breaches can affect data subjects in two main ways. Data breaches can cause nonmaterial damage. If your personal information was breached, this could lead to you suffering psychological and mental health injuries. You may feel overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious; you could feel down and depressed. Data breach victims could also develop mental health injuries such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result.

In addition, victims may also suffer material damage, especially if their banking details have been breached. Cybercriminals could use this information to make fraudulent purchases or take out fraudulent loans. This could damage the data breach victims’ credit scores.

How To Prevent A Data Protection Breach?

Data controllers and processors are obliged to protect personal data per the data protection laws we mentioned earlier. Implementing policies and procedures within the organisations’ frameworks is key to ensuring that compliance is met. Below we look at ways organisations can adhere to data protection laws in protecting your personal data.

Reduce the number of people who can access personal data.
Create an open environment where employees feel they can ask for help where necessary.
Invest in staff data awareness training, ensuring that they are aware and comply with the key principles of the UK GDPR
Ensure both physical and digital files are protected, whether this is password protected or in a locked filing cabinet.
Have up-to-date cyber security systems in place that are of the correct standards so hackers cannot infiltrate online systems.

What Could You Claim If Impacted By A Data Breach?

Successful claimants of personal data breach claims can receive compensation for two areas of damage.

Material damage is the financial loss you suffered as a consequence of the data breach.
Non-material damage is emotional distress and psychological injuries that were caused or exacerbated by the personal data breach.

We used the 16th edition Judicial College compensation guidelines, updated for 2022, in the table below. All personal data breach claims are unique, so the amount that may be awarded in successful claims can differ. The compensation brackets in the table are for non-material damage it does not include any values for material damage.

Effects On Mental Health	Potential Damages	Comments
Severe Mental Harm (A)	£54,830 to £115,730	There is a very poor prognosis for recovery in the future. The person could experience issues when trying to cope with their life in general or specifically in employment, study and relationships.
Moderately Severe Mental Harm (B)	£19,070 to £54,830	Whilst they could be affected in a similar way to the person above, a better prognosis has been given. There could be some improvement with appropriate treatment.
Moderate Mental Harm (C)	£5,860 to £19,070	Whilst there will have been initial issues coping with employment, relationships and studying, there has been a marked improvement.
Less Severe Mental Harm	£1,540 to £5,860	Factors which could affect the valuation of a claim may include the impact on sleep patterns and for how long symptoms lasted.
Severe PTSD (A)	£59,860 to £100,670	Cases in this bracket could leave the person with negative effects in all areas of their life. They will be unable to function as they did before the trauma.
Moderately Severe PTSD (B)	£23,150 to £59,860	There is a better prognosis for making a recovery. The person will still suffer a disability for the foreseeable future.
Moderate PTSD (C)	£8,180 to £23,150	A large degree of recovery has happened. Any remaining effects are not causing a major disability.
Less Severe PTSD (D)	£3,950 to £8,180	A near full recovery takes place between 1 and 2 years.

Should your personal data be affected if a Victim Support data breach were to occur, then our advisors are on hand to provide free advice to you at any time of the day or night.

Begin Your No Win No Fee Data Breach Claim

To meet the criteria for claiming personal data breach compensation under Article 82 of the UK GDPR, the onus will be on you to:

Firstly, show how the data controller or processor failed to keep secure your personal data in line with data protection regulations.
Secondly, show how this caused a data breach that involved your personal data, and
Prove how you lost money or suffered a mental health condition as a consequence.

Why not contact our advisors today? They can evaluate your case for free. If they can see that you meet the above criteria, they could introduce you to a No Win No Fee solicitor from our data breach panel.

When you work with a No Win No Fee solicitor, you may be asked to sign a Conditional Fee Agreement which means you won’t pay a solicitor’s fee upfront. Instead, you pay a success fee if the data breach claim is successful. And the success fee will be charged at a capped rate.

Please contact Advice.co.uk to see if you can claim compensation for a charity data breach.