Our collective has dealt with over 14,000 data breach cases

Call free

Start Your Data Breach Compensation Claim Here

Data breaches have increased in terms of the number and the amount of people affected. Many big companies have been involved, resulting in some very large data breaches and payouts.

FCA logo

Did you know...

Our collective has dealt with over

14,000

data breach cases

Start your data breach claim with us today below or call 0330 828 1764

As featured in

Why Choose Data Breach Claims

£4,000 Average Claim

Customers, on average claim £4,000 from incidents of data breach

Free Expert Advice

Experts are ready and waiting to advise you in any way you need

No win, no fee

All solicitors work on a no win, no fee basis. 100% free, unless your claim is successful

60 second check

It only takes 60 seconds to begin your check for a potentially huge payout

No risk involved

There’s no risk in checking. It will not affect your credit score and it’s free

Has your data been handled incorrectly?

Alternatively, give one of our solicitors a call free on 0330 828 1764

Lines open 9am – 5pm Mon to Fri

Did you know...

Our collective has dealt with over

14,000

Data breach cases

The biggest data breaches

Data breaches have been increasing both in terms of number and the amount of people affected. Many big companies have been affected resulting in some very large scale breaches and compensation pay outs.

Alternatively, give one of our solicitors a call free on 0330 828 1764

What our clients say...

GDPR Claim

Lovely supportive team! Sarah is brilliant, she helped me get through a tough period, always stayed in contact with me and referred me to the best of people resulting in an excellent outcome. Highly recommended!

Claire

What Is a Data Breach?

A data breach is defined as the exposure of sensitive or confidential information to an unauthorised person, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

The person committing the breach can be a hacker, violating your private information for personal reasons or for the sake of a bigger entity. In some cases, the offender may not be a professional hacker at all, but rather just a grudging acquaintance of yours.

If a company that holds your data ends up giving it to an unauthorised party without your permission, this is also considered a data protection breach under GDPR.

As you can see, any one of us can be subjected to a GDPR breach. Thus, we must try our hardest to protect our information, starting by understanding why and how a data breach occurs in the first place.

What Is a Personal Data Breach?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) describes a personal data breach as a violation of secure or confidential personal information by an unauthorised party. The personal data may be lost, misused, stolen, or destroyed. This covers both accidental and deliberate breaches of data.

An example of a personal data breach is when an unauthorised third party like a hacker gains access to your data. Another data breach example is the loss of availability or alteration of your personal data without permission.

Alternatively, give one of our solicitors a call free on 0330 828 1764

Has your data been handled incorrectly?

Lines open 9am – 5pm Mon to Fri

Alternatively, give one of our solicitors a call free on 0330 828 1764

FCA logo

As featured in

Can I Make A Data Breach Compensation Claim?

Due to the need to protect people’s data, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into place in 2018, and was later superceded following Brexit by UK GDPR. The Regulation aims at protecting individuals and giving them the right to redress in circumstances where their data has been mishandled by third party entrusted with it. The third party here applies to a range of organisations that operate both online and offline services where a person’s data need to be stored.

Under GDPR you can make a data breach claim if you believe that your data has been breached. In many circumstances you will have already been informed about the breach by the organisation which will have usually taken steps to minimise the impact of the breach and the potential risk.

When a breach has occurred, it is common practice for the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to be informed. In some instances, the organisation may attempt to reach a settlement with you outside of the court process, but for the best chances of maximising your data breach compensation we would recommend your claim being properly represented.

For the best chance at a data protection claim, it’s important to act fast, as there are strict time limits in place. Missing the deadline could mean forfeiting your right to claim.

Alternatively, give one of our solicitors a call free on 0330 828 1764

Lines open 9am – 5pm Mon to Fri

Data breach in figures

Claims on data breach incidents are happening every day.

51%

Of consumers expect financial compensation if their information is lost or stolen

99%

Of UK citizens have had a data breach and can claim thousands of pounds in compensation

The UK has a population of nearly 70 million people

88%

Of data breaches in the UK are said to be due to human error and warrant compensation

What is a GDPR data breach compensation claim?

A data breach claim is a claim you can make against an individual, an entity, or a number of defendants. In the claim, you state the defendant to be a responsible party for the exposure of your personal information, seeking financial compensation for the damages.

The current law allows you to make a claim for the material damage of the breach, like losing money, and the non-material damage, like suffering from any distress and anxiety caused by the data breach.

If data protection law is breached, GDPR gives you an opportunity to claim compensation from the organisation responsible for the breach that should have been properly protecting your data.

How Much Data Breach Compensation Can I Receive?

The amount of data breach compensation varies according to the type of the breach and the court judgment. 

These are some of the typical GDPR breach compensation ranges:

£900 – £25,700

The lowest compensation goes for the mild breach of personal data, such as your name, date of birth, home address, and email address.

You get a bigger compensation for the breach of medical information, starting from £2,000 to £5,000. You can get from £3,000 to £8,600 if your financial information is breached, depending on the complications of the breach.

You can get from £8,600 to £25,700 for the more serious data protection breach cases that have led to serious consequences. 

£25,700 – £42,900

If the data breach has caused any sort of physical or mental diseases, your compensation can amount to £42,900. However, in such cases, you must provide evidence for your medical condition and your financial losses.

It’s important to note that these estimates aren’t fixed; it’s left for the court to decide your exact compensation award. In some cases, the court may deny your demand for compensation if it sees that you’ve not provided enough evidence for your case. It might even order that you pay for the defendant’s costs in such a case.

This is why we always recommend that you seek advice from an independent legal entity.

How do you know if you are eligible for data breach compensation?

Under the DPA and GDPR, you are entitled to file a claim for data breach compensation if:

  • Your personal data has been leaked, disclosed, corrupted, hacked, mis-used, or lost
  • The breach was deliberate or due to negligence
  • The breach occurred within less than six years
  • You have not suffered economic loss; you can still claim for the emotional impact the breach has had in your life
  • The company has offered you a free credit monitoring or anything similar

What do you need to show before making a claim for data breach?

For your claim to be successful you will need to demonstrate that the company that held your data failed to take all appropriate steps to ensure the safety and security of your data and that, as a result of their negligence, your data was released or made available to other, third parties or organisations without your consent.

Any company that is holding your data has certain obligations with that data and a claim can be made if:

  • The breach could have happened as a result of the data being lost or hacked.
  • Released to a non-related party without your consent.
  • The information held by the company hadn’t been updated and the inaccuracy of this caused you damage. This could relate to financial details of your life for example.
  • Personal information had been used in an inappropriate manner.

What is the average compensation amount for breach of the Data Protection Act?

The average compensation for breaching the Data Protection Act varies according to the specific circumstances of each case, but compensation amounts usually fall between £1,000 and £42,900, depending on the seriousness of the data breach. In some cases, you might be able to claim more compensation for a personal data breach that has related to a leak of sensitive information which has caused you significant emotional distress.

The following figures can be used as a rough guide to how much compensation you could receive as a result of different types of data breach. 

Type of breachPossible compensation amount
Breach of a person’s name, date of birth, home address, and email address£1,000-£1,500
Breach of medical records£2,000-£5,000
Breach of financial information£3,000-£7,000
Breach that leads to an illness or depression (medical evidence would be needed to support this alongside evidence to show any other losses e.g. earnings)£25,700-£42,900

How much have previous data breach claimants received in compensation?

The amount of money that data breach claimants have received in compensation has increased over the years. Initial breaches of the Data Protection Act typically only won about £2,500 in damages related to the disclosure of personal information. However, as companies have been collecting more private data, more cases have been going to court and leading to more precedents and higher compensation amounts being set. 

The majority of data breach claims are settled outside of court, but the amount of money that is agreed on is normally informed by cases that are similar in nature. Below are some data breach compensation examples.

CompanyWhat happened?Average claim amount
EasyjetA cyber-attack on Easyjet’s IT systems allowed hackers to access personal data of 9 million customers£2,000
118 118 MoneyCustomer call recordings in which personal details could have been discussed were targeted by hackers £1,500
BlackbaudCyber-attack stole sensitive information at software giant Blackbaud that affected other companies linked to them including National Trust£2,000-£3,000
BountyDisclosed personal data of pregnant women and mums to third parties for marketing purposes, almost 35 million pieces of data revealed£1,000 – £2,000
Bristol City CouncilAn email error by council employee saw identities of hundreds of families with disabled children shared without their consent£2,000-£3,000
British Airways A hack occurred in which 420,000 customers personal and financial details were stolenUp to £6,000
Claire’s AccessoriesA hack via malicious code that obtained customer information during online checkout£3,000 – £5,000
DixonsA hack that saw over 10 million customer records accessed by malicious software on tills in stores£1,500
EquifaxCyber criminals accessed Equifax systems in USA and stole personal information of 146 million people worldwide£1,000 – £2,000
EquintiHundreds of annual benefit statements for Sussex police officers were sent to wrong addresses£1,000 – £2,000
Hockley Medical PracticeMedical data of thousands of patients accessed by hackers£3,000
Lloyds PharmacyPrivate medical documents were accidentally delivered by a courier company to a home in Scotland£1,500
LOQBOXHit by a cyber-attack that allowed hackers to access personal data and in some cases payment card data£4,000
MarriottCyber-attack occurred in 2014 but wasn’t discovered until 2018 affected 7 million guest records in UK£2,500
National TrustBreach originated at Blackbaud, but National Trust fundraisers and volunteers were affected as personal data exposed£2,000-£3,000
OnePlusInformation hacked through online store; personal data accessed by cyber criminals£1,500 – £2,000
T-MobileBreach affected over 1.2 million of prepaid customers, hackers accessed personal information£1,500 – £2,000
TeamSportAccidental release of hundreds of personal and financial details of former employees to an individual£4,000
Ticketmaster40,000 customers personal and financial information stolen by cyber criminals£5,000
TwitterA bug inside Twitter led to the private tweets of 88,726 users being made public£1,000
Virgin MediaAn unsecured database meant personal information of existing and potential customers was accessed without permission£5,000
Watford Community Housing Error by staff member meant email was sent out with information about 3,545 tenants containing personal data£2,000
ZoomTargeted by a hack that led to around 500,000 user accounts appearing for sale on the dark web£2,500


All compensation amounts are estimates/averages and are dependent on the degree to which the individual has been affected by the data breach. 

In what sectors are data breach claims quite common?

While there are a number of specific companies that have been affected by sizeable data breaches (as outlined above), there are some sectors where data breaches are common, and the impact in many cases could be significant because of the often highly sensitive nature of the data involved.

Some of the types of data breaches where you could have a claim include: Government Data Breaches, School Data Breaches, Credit Card Data Breaches, Bank Data Breaches, NHS Data Breaches, Charity Data Breaches, App & Website Data Breaches, and Private Company Data Breaches. We are able to assist you if you have been a victim of a data breach in any of these specific areas, as well as others.

What is a Data Leak?

Data leaks happen when an organisation provides confidential information to an untrusted recipient. This includes any form of unapproved transmission of data to an external party, electronically or physically. 

This criminal act, however, isn’t always intentional. In fact, just under a fifth of all data leak cases happen by accident and are often due to human error. Examples include sending confidential information to the wrong email address and mishandling a file containing private info and misplacing it.

What Are Some Examples of a Data Leak?

Essentially, any event that exposes private information to unauthorised persons in an unwanted or harmful way is considered a data leak. A few common examples are as follows:

  • Unintentionally sending private data to the wrong recipient.
  • Losing any electronic or physical item that contains private information, whether by loss or theft. These items can include laptops, smartphones, or even paper documents. 
  • Fake malicious websites that ask the user to provide their account or financial information.
  • Malware, such as viruses or trojans, that are used to hack your device, therefore gaining access to personal information.
  • Electronically sending private data without any type of password protection and/or sending the password in the same email. 
  • An employee forwarding company documents that contain sensitive information to their own email or downloading it on their device. 

Has any of the following every happened to you?

If any of the below apply to you, you should check for compensation online right away.

Alternatively, give one of our solicitors a call free on 0330 828 1764

Why use us?

Free Consultation

We offer a free data breach consultation to anyone who is looking to make a claim

No win, no fee

If your case or cases have no financial payout to you, you don’t pay a single penny

Data breach experts

We use dedicated data breach solicitors who have handled thousands of data breach claims

Frequently Asked Questions

First, you’ll need to find out what kind of data has been affected, and what steps the organisation plans on taking to help you. If the association fails to repair the damage or to give you GDPR compensation for the damage done, then, you can reach out to Data Breach Claims.

Data Breach Claims will connect you with the kind of expertise the situation calls for. It’ll put you in contact with claims experts who will act as an intermediary between you and the company being claimed against.

You can also report your case to the ICO who will investigate the matter and potentially fine the organisation. If the organisation is found to have broken data protection laws, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) won’t give you compensation, but their findings will help the matter greatly.

If your data is breached, that means that your personal information has been accessed, altered, lost, destroyed, or shared with an unauthorised person without your consent. It’s basically a failure of the system that is intended to protect. That could happen to individuals, companies, or even the government itself.

If you suffer any damage whether it’s material, or emotional because of a data protection breach, then you have a right to make a claim for data protection breach compensation.

Whereas businesses based in or outside the UK had previously been following EU GDPR for processing UK users’ personal data, this is now governed by a new domestic law called UK GDPR. This effectively provides the EU equivalent level of data protection. Those business offering goods and service to EU user should continue to follow EU GDPR.

UK Claims that relate to period up to Dec 31, 2020 would be under EU GDPR, and any after that, the new UK GDPR would apply. In practical terms this won’t make much difference to your ability to claim as the data protection principles are largely the same.

Suppose you’ve been victim to a security violation, meaning your personal information has been violated, copied, stolen, destroyed, or transmitted by an organisation. Then you have the right to claim personal data breach compensation for a breach.

How can I determine if my personal data was stolen?

If there’s a data breach affecting your personal information, an organisation is obligated to inform both you and the ICO.

The organisation should clarify in plain language:

  • Consequences of the said data breach.
  • Measures taken to handle the breach and its adverse effects.
  • Contact details of the officer in charge of data protection in the company.

If you think that your personal information has been violated due to a data breach but haven’t been notified by the organisation involved, contact them straight away.

When do I need to notify about a personal data breach?

Under the GDPR, notifications are generated when the breach of personal information is believed to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals. However, this process is optional and not mandatory. Therefore, not all data breaches need to be notified to the authorities.

What information must a personal data breach notification have?

Under the GDPR, there are some points to be included in the notification. When reporting a personal data breach, you must describe the nature of the breach, including, if possible, the categories and the approximate number of data subjects and data records concerned.

When making a claim for data breach compensation for distress, it can be more difficult to demonstrate than proving a financial loss where you can show what has been taken from your account. If your experience of distress from a data breach is serious and you want to make a claim some evidence that could help your chances of it being successful include, medical evidence such as doctors appointments and medication prescribed for sleeping or to reduce anxiety, a written note from your doctor, documented time off work and sick pay, and any other documentation that could show the impact the breach has had in your life.

How likely is it that I’ll be able to claim for distress?

Data breaches have become more and more frequent as companies regularly hold personal data about you. Having that data breached can be highly stress inducing and you should be able to hold the organisation accountable and claim the money you deserve. Contact us today and we will put you in touch with specialist data breach solicitors who can help validate and pursue your GDPR compensation for distress. 

Your initial action should be to protect the rest of your data to ensure no further data breach is made. The next step should be looking into how your data has been breached, then seeking help on your case for compensation.

Here are detailed steps you should take once you’re aware of the data breach.

  1. Change all of your login information. Check your passwords/codes’ strength and activate multi-factor authentication options, such as verification codes or security questions.
  2. Keep a record of any notifications you receive concerning a data breach and any correspondences made concerning that matter.
  3. Find out exact details on what type of data has been breached and how.
  4. Direct contact with the offender: It’s always advisable that you initiate making a compensation claim by attempting to sort it out with the offender organisation
  5. Under no circumstances should you agree to sign any papers that urge you to forgo your rights as victims of the data breach.

If an organisation has failed to protect your data, you are entitled to claim compensation regardless of whether you have suffered any losses or not. We can make a claim on your behalf for anguish or anxiety caused by a data breach, but if you have suffered financial harm as a direct result of the breach, the amount of compensation you might be able to claim would likely be far greater.

At Data Breach Claims we work on a No Win, No Fee basis. We only take on cases we believe we are able to win.

If your case is successful we will take a percentage of your compensation as our management fee or legal costs, if your case does happen to be unsuccessful, you pay nothing. This way there is absolutely no risk involved for you in making a data breach compensation claim.

When you contact us, we’ll put you in touch with an expert data breach solicitor who will be able to contact the company in question and use any information you have provides plus that available from the ICO to establish whether your data has indeed been breached.

If you’re determined on going to court, you should have legal support. At Data Breach Claims, we’ll help you determine whether you have a strong case or not. If it’s a yes, our team will introduce you to the best and most suitable solicitors and claims management companies for you.

The experts will give you solid legal advice and help present your claim to the court to guarantee you get the compensation that truly makes up for the hardships you had to go through.

Useful links

Click one to see more

Equifax Data Breach

Find out everything you need to know about the Equifax data breach

Zynga Data Breach

Find out everything you need to know about the Zynga data breach

Dubsmash Data Breach

Find out everything you need to know about the Dubsmash data breach

Marriot Data Breach

Find out everything you need to know about the Marriott data breach

Police Federation Data Breach

Find out everything you need to know about the Police Federation data breach

My FitnessPal

Find out everything you need to know about the My FitnessPal data breach

EasyJet Data Breach

Find out everything you need to know about the EasyJet data breach

British Airways Data Breach

Find out everything you need to know about the British Airways data breach

As featured in the national press.

Charlotte
Liverpool
Read More
Claimed compensation on my behalf thanks! Outstanding professional service!
Ali
Derby
Read More
Helped me get my claim over the line. Rachel was very helpful throughout
Simon
Liverpool
Read More
Very professional service, completed my claim swiftly
Claire
London
Read More
Lovely supportive team! Sarah is brilliant, she helped me get through a tough period, always stayed in contact with me and referred me to the best of people resulting in an excellent outcome. Highly recommend!
Alan
Newcastle
Read More
I found them a pleasure to deal with. Very clear and easy to understand. A good service.
Daniel
Manchester
Read More
They dealt professionally and quickly with our data breach compensation claim. The staff went above and beyond our expectations and were very friendly and helpful. Would definitely use again.
Daniel
Manchester
Read More
They dealt professionally and quickly with our data breach compensation claim. The staff went above and beyond our expectations and were very friendly and helpful. Would definitely use again.
Previous
Next

Has your data been handled incorrectly?

Alternatively, give one of our solicitors a call free on 0330 828 1764

Lines open 9am – 5pm Mon to Fri

FCA logo

As featured in

Guides & Articles

Click one to see more.

We're ready to help you get the compensation you deserve

Alternatively, give one of our solicitors a call free on 0330 828 1764

Lines open 9am – 5pm Mon to Fri

Has your data been handled incorrectly?