Police Officer Personal Data Breach – How To Claim Compensation

Police officer data breach claims guide

Police officer personal data breach

This guide will examine the steps that you could potentially take should a police officer personal data breach occur.

A personal data breach can lead to significant harm. This harm may involve financial damage, such as money taken from your bank account due to identity theft. Additionally, it could involve mental health injuries, such as anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

There are various rules and regulations that apply to the handling and processing of personal data in the UK. They apply to information in both physical and digital forms. These are outlined in the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA).

You can speak to a member of our team at Accident Claims UK to receive expert legal advice. Our team of advisors are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to talk at a time that suits you. All advice is both free and confidential, so don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss your claim today. To get started:

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What Is A Police Officer Personal Data Breach?

Firstly, we will use a definition provided by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to define what a personal data breach is. The ICO is an independent UK body responsible for upholding information rights.

Although they cannot award victims with compensation, they can carry out investigations and take action when organisations are found to have breached data protection laws. They describe a personal data breach as a security incident that affects the availability, confidentiality, or integrity of your personal data.

A data controller is in charge of the means and purposes of processing personal data, and a data controller acts on their instructions. Therefore, both controllers and processors have a duty to adhere to data protection laws.

Furthermore, the UK GDPR creates an avenue for victims of a personal data breach to claim compensation for the harm they suffer. To be eligible to claim, the following must be true:

  • The data controller or processor handling your personal data must have failed to uphold data protection laws.
  • This caused a breach involving your personal data
  • As a result, you must suffer harm

Please contact our team of advisors to find out if you could be eligible to make a claim. Our advisors can also provide free legal advice, and a free consultation.

Types Of Data The Police May Handle

The police could process various types of information, including personal data, criminal offence data and, in certain cases, special category data. Below we will briefly describe what each of these categories of data could include:

  • Personal data – is information that can be used to identify you, either when combined with other data or on its own. This could include your name, postal address, email address, phone number, or your credit card or debit card details.
  • Criminal offence data – is described in Article 10 of the UK GDPR as personal data involving criminal convictions and offences or related security measures.
  • Special category data – is described in Article 9 of the UK GDPR as information of a sensitive nature, including your ethnicity and racial origin, sexual orientation and health data.

If you suspect that a police officer personal data breach has compromised your personal information, please speak to a member of our team for advice.

What Is Criminal Offence Data?

Criminal offence data, as mentioned above, is personal data that relates to criminal offences and convictions. This includes information that relates to or could reveal information about investigations, allegations, criminal offences, and proceedings.

The UK GDPR dictates that criminal offence data needs extra protection, but it is not a form of special category data. This data is given extra protection because it could pose a risk to the rights or freedoms of the data subject.

If your criminal offence data has been compromised, contact our team today. They can tell you if your claim could be eligible. Or, read on to learn more about the steps you could take should a police officer personal data breach occur.

How Could You Be Affected By A Policer Officer Data Breach?

A police officer personal data breach could cause notable harm to your mental health, as well as your finances.

For example, a personal data breach of your criminal offence data could result in anxiety, depression, and distress. It could also cause any existing mental health issues to worsen. For example, if you already live with anxiety, a personal data breach could exacerbate these symptoms. If you suffer from a mental health injury because of a personal data breach, this is known as non-material damage.

However, a personal data breach can also cause financial harm. For example, you may need to take time off work to recover from the psychological effects of the breach. If your employer does not offer sick pay, then you may experience lost earnings. In this case, you could claim these losses back under material damage compensation.

Read on to learn more about compensation in personal data breach claims.

Calculating Compensation For A Personal Data Breach

A successful personal data breach claim could involve a payout potentially consisting of compensation for both material and non-material damage.

Firstly, we will discuss potential compensation amounts for non-material damage, which relates to the psychological injuries you suffer as a result of the personal data breach. We have used the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG), updated in April 2022, to create the table below as a guide. Legal professionals use the JCG to help them value data breach claim settlements.

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Mental Injury Severity Notes Compensation
Psychological Harm (a) Severe The person will have a very poor prognosis. The injury will cause marked problems with their ability to cope with work, education, and daily life. £54,830 to £115,730
Psychological Harm (b) Moderately Severe The person will have a much more optimistic prognosis than the above bracket. The injury will cause significant problems with their ability to cope with work, education, and daily life. £19,070 to £54,830
Psychological Harm (c) Moderate The person may have initially faced similar problems as the brackets above, however, by the time of trial there will have been marked improvement. Their prognosis will be good. £5,860 to £19,070
Psychological Harm (d) Less Severe The compensation awarded is determined by how long the person suffered a period of disability, and the extent to which it affected their sleep and daily life. £1,540 to £5,860
PTSD (a) Severe The injury will involve permanent effects preventing the person from functioning at the level they did before the trauma took place. It would badly affect all parts of their life. £59,860 to £100,670
PTSD (b) Moderately Severe Within this bracket, the person has a better prognosis of recovery with professional aid. However, for the foreseeable future, the effects are likely to cause significant disability. £23,150 to £59,860
PTSD (c) Moderate A moderate case of PTSD will mean the person has largely recovered. Persisting effects will not grossly disable the person. £8,180 to £23,150
PTSD (d) Less Severe A virtually full recovery from the injury would happen within one – two years, with only minor symptoms lasting longer. £3,950 to £8,180

Please remember these figures are a guide. Each claim is different, and so each payout is different, too.

You may also be eligible to claim compensation for material damage, which refers to the financial losses incurred by the data breach. This can include:

  • Money that was stolen from your bank account
  • Damage to your credit score
  • Lost earnings

You will need to provide evidence as proof of material damage. For example, bank records and payslips can both demonstrate financial harm.

Speak to one of our advisors to learn more about the compensation you could be eligible to receive for your claim.

Should A Police Officer Personal Data Breach Affect You, Call Our Team

If you allow one of our advisors to assess your claim, they could find that you may have a valid case and connect you with one of our No Win No Fee solicitors under a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA). With this kind of agreement, you usually won’t have to pay any upfront or ongoing fees to your solicitor for them to start work on your claim. Additionally, you commonly won’t pay for these services should your claim be unsuccessful.

A claim ending in success will generally mean the solicitor can take a small percentage of the compensation, called a success fee. The law caps this amount, and it is taken directly from your award.

Speak to one of our advisors today to find out how one our solicitors could help you. They can also provide more information on the steps you could take following a police officer personal data breach. To learn more:

Learn More About Data Breach Claims

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Thank you for reading this guide on the steps you could take should a police officer personal data breach occur.

Guide by MW

Edited by CH/JO