Holiday Inn GDPR Data Breach Compensation Claims Guide

My Data Privacy Was Breached By Holiday Inn, Could I Claim Compensation?

in this guide, we explore what you could do after a potential data breach by Holiday Inn.

Whenever you share your personal data with a company, be it your contact details or your banking details, for example, they should take measures to keep it safe. The UK GDPR outlines this and places responsibilities on those who collect and process your personal data to keep it secure and private.

There could be potentially serious ramifications for you if you fall victim to a data breach. You could lose money or have private information accessed by others, with harm being done to your financial situation as well as your mental health.

You can hold companies to account in situations where their unreasonable failings or actions caused a personal data breach that negatively affected your finances or mental health. To do this, you could make a compensation claim.

We have put this guide together to inform you about how data protection laws work, what your rights are, how you could claim, and how a data breach solicitor could help you to do it.

Use some of the following contact methods to reach our advisors. They’re available 24/7 and you’ll be under no obligation to proceed with our panel of lawyers’ services.

Ring 0161 696 9685
Request a phone call by contacting us
Send us an email at [email protected]
Use our live chat to get answers online.

Select A Section

A Guide On Data Protection Breach Claims Against Holiday Inn
What Are Data Protection Breach Claims Against Holiday Inn?
How Does The GDPR Affect Data Sharing With Third Parties?
How Have Hotels Been Affected By Breaches Of Data Protection?
Calculating Compensation Amounts For A Data Breach
Types Of Damages Awarded To Data Breach Victims
How To Raise A Complaint With The Information Commissioner’s Office
Make A Data Protection Breach Claim Against Holiday Inn With A No Win No Fee Solicitor
How To Find A Specialist Data Breach Solicitor
How Do I Start A Hotel Data Breach Claim?
Talk To Our Team About Your Data Breach
Frequently Asked Questions About Hotel Data Breaches
Where To Learn More About Data Breaches

A Guide On Data Protection Breach Claims Against Holiday Inn

You may be feeling stressed out and confused about what to do about your situation. You may be wondering “could I claim compensation against Holiday Inn for a data breach?”

In this guide, we will explain what data breaches are, what the law says about data protection, and what situations could entitle you to make a compensation claim.

This guide also has information about how the process of making a claim works. This includes subjects like:

Explaining how your compensation is worked out.
What kind of compensation you could be entitled to claim.
How you could prepare to make a claim.
What No Win No Fee is.

This guide is just the start, so don’t worry if there are things about it that you do not entirely understand. The next step is calling our advisors. You can speak to them whether you want to get started on making a data breach claim right away, or if you want to ask some questions to clarify things first.

You can find the contact details for reaching them at the top and the bottom of this page. Our advisors are available 24/7 and their advice is free. Plus, you’ll be under no obligation to proceed with the services of our panel of solicitors.

What Are Data Protection Breach Claims Against Holiday Inn?

A data protection breach is a situation where a security breach leads to the unlawful or unauthorised disclosure, destruction, access, change or loss of personal information. It could occur in a number of different ways, both deliberate and accidental. Some examples of the situations that could cause a data breach include companies:

Misusing people’s personal data, i.e. for marketing purposes but without consent or a lawful reason.
Sharing or selling data to other third parties without consent or a lawful basis.
Losing physical documents containing people’s personal information.
Failing to put adequate cyber-security measures in place to protect personal information contained on electronic or online storage.

If the party holding on to your personal data has allowed it to be breached through their negligence, you could be entitled to hold them to account by claiming compensation from them. You would, however, need to prove that your endured financial loss or psychological damage. This is known as a data protection breach claim.

A personal data breach claim could go to court if the organisation you are claiming against decides to contest the issue. However, many claims do not get this far as the third party often concedes and offers a settlement.

How Does The GDPR Affect Data Sharing With Third Parties?

The GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation. It is an EU set of rules and principles. It was enacted into UK law through the Data Protection Act 2018. The Data Protection Act works alongside the UK GDPR.

The principles outlined under the UK GDPR are as follows:

Personal data has to be collected by means that are lawful, transparent and fair.
It should be limited to only the kind of data the company needs.
The personal data cannot be used for any purpose besides the reasons given when the data was requested. (However, there are lawful exceptions where they can share your data without your consent.)
Personal data has to be kept up-to-date and it has to be accurate.
It should be deleted or destroyed once its purpose has been served.
Personal data should be stored and processed in a secure manner, protected from the threat of being breached.
It is up to the group holding the data to show proof that these principles have been abided by.

How Have Hotels Been Affected By Breaches Of Data Protection?

Holiday Inn has been affected by a data breach before. In April 2017, Intercontinental Hotels Group (the company that owns Holiday Inn) stated that it had found evidence that between September and December of the previous year there had been malware activity in the systems used in its front desk payments.

This indicated that those behind the malware attack had potential access to thousands of customers’ payment card data. The hotels affected included around 1,200 in the USA and Puerto Rico.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39642172

Calculating Compensation Amounts For A Data Breach

You may be wondering “how much compensation could I get for a data breach claim?” We can’t give an exact answer for that at the moment. The amount of compensation you could be awarded has to be calculated to reflect how severely impacted you have been by the data breach.

Your mental health can be harmed by a personal data breach. The threat of having your personal data privacy breached can cause stress, anxiety or other mental harm.

In order to claim for psychological damage caused by a personal data breach, you’d be invited to have a medical assessment. An independent professional would diagnose the extent of the symptoms brought on by the data breach. The purpose of this assessment is to:

Prove that your injuries were exacerbated or caused by the personal data breach.
Assess the severity of your injuries.

After the assessment, the professional would create a report. Your solicitor could use this to help them value your injuries.

The compensation table below shows a breakdown of the amounts of compensation you could receive for different kinds of mental and emotional harm. These figures are taken from the Judicial College Guidelines. Solicitors and other legal professionals use these guidelines to help them when valuing injuries.

Injury	Compensation
Severe psychiatric damage	£51,460 to £108,620
Moderately severe psychiatric damage	£17,900 to £51,460
Moderate psychiatric damage	£5,500 to £17,900
Less severe PTSD	£56,180 to £94,470
Moderately severe PTSD	£21,730 to £56,180
Moderate PTSD	£7,680 to £21,730
Less severe PTSD	Up to £7,680

If you can’t see your condition in the above compensation table, why not reach out to us? Our advisors give free estimates of how much you could claim.

Types Of Damages Awarded To Data Breach Victims

In the above section, we described one kind of compensation you could be entitled to claim in a data breach claim. That compensation is non-material damages. That’s compensation for the impact the data breach has on your mental health.

There is another consequence of a data breach that you could be compensated for. One of the risks associated with data breaches is the risk of financial losses.

By accessing your banking data, cyber-criminals could steal money from your account, or use your personal details to make purchases in your name. This could have a long-lasting impact on your credit rating.

Compensation for financial loss is material damages.

If you wish to claim compensation for financial losses you have lost then you should take care to keep hold proof of the loss, such as bank statements, bills or credits scores. Documentation such as this could help provide evidence to support your claim.

How To Raise A Complaint With The Information Commissioner’s Office

Before you attempt to bring about a compensation claim, you may wish to pursue the option of making a complaint to the ICO, although this is not strictly necessary. The ICO is an independent regulator that oversees data protection in the UK. You can learn about how to make an ICO complaint here.

If you do make an ICO complaint, make sure you do it within three months of the last time you had contact with the company whose failings led to a data breach. If you wait longer than this, your complaint may not be taken up by the ICO.

The ICO can investigate the matter and has the authority to dispense fines if it finds evidence of wrongdoing. You can come to us after making an ICO complaint if you do not receive a satisfactory resolution to your complaint.

In addition, please note that the ICO can’t give you compensation for the suffering you endured due to a data breach caused by a hotel’s security failings. However, if you can evidence that your endured financial loss or psychological harm as a result of the data breach, our advisors could help. Get in touch today.

Make A Data Protection Breach Claim Against Holiday Inn With A No Win No Fee Solicitor

If you want to make a compensation claim, but you are worried about how much of a financial risk you’re taking by hiring a lawyer, you could make a No Win No Fee claim.

A No Win No Fee claim is a type of agreement between you and the lawyer. They would receive payment through a small percentage of the compensation payout awarded if the claim is successful.

Plus, there’d be no upfront solicitor fees. There wouldn’t be any ongoing solicitor fees either.

Should the claim be unsuccessful, you wouldn’t have to pay any solicitor fees.

Such a claim arrangement can be a financially safer way to fund a solicitor’s services as it means that you will not be placed in a position where you have to pay legal fees you cannot afford.

It is often a good sign if a lawyer agrees to make a No Win No Fee claim, as it indicates that they are confident in your chances of success. Taking on a No Win No Fee claim is a risk for them.

Our panel of solicitors offer their services under such agreements. Call us to find out more.

How To Find A Specialist Data Breach Solicitor

To start looking for a data breach solicitor, one of the first places you could go is online reviews. Reviews posted online by people who have previously worked with a solicitor can help you identify the solicitor that is right for you.

Additionally, reviews can help you to identify which solicitors:

Have worked with cases similar to yours in the past.
Have been successful.
Were well regarded by their previous clients.

One factor to remember is that you don’t have to worry about whereabouts the solicitor is based compared to you. Our panel of solicitors can cover claims remotely from anywhere in the country.

If you need help finding the right solicitor, then why not contact our advisors? They can offer you a free consultation and put you in touch with a data breach lawyer.

How Do I Start A Hotel Data Breach Claim?

Before starting a data breach claim, you may wish to contact Holiday Inn to rectify the situation first. They may be able to provide you with some kind of resolution to the situation. If not, then it could at least prove beneficial for your claim to provide proof that you attempted to resolve the issue beforehand.

After that, you could come to us directly, or you could make a complaint to the ICO. The ICO could investigate your complaint. But you should contact them within 3 months of your last meaningful response from the hotel.

You could bring your situation to us later on if you do not find a resolution to your situation this way. It’s also important to note that the ICO can’t help you with claiming compensation.

If you wish to take up your claim with us, then your first move will be to contact our advisors using one of the contact methods at the top and bottom of this page. Then they can provide you with a free consultation, explaining the situation and letting you know whether it is a case that our panel of solicitors could take up. If it is, they could put you in touch with a data breach solicitor from our panel.

Talk To Our Team About Your Data Breach

To reach our advisors and possibly speak to a data breach lawyer, or to get a free consultation about making a claim, you can do any of the following:

Call 0161 696 9685
Request a phone call from our advisors by contacting us here
Send us a message through the pop-up chatbox for instant answers
Send an email to [email protected]

Frequently Asked Questions About Hotel Data Breaches

What are my rights if my data privacy has been breached?

If you have been the victim of a data breach, you could make a complaint to the company involved. Alternatively, you could make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office. If you have evidence of a valid claim, you could make a compensation claim with our panel of data breach lawyers.

Do I need to report a data breach?

If you are responsible for handling other people’s personal data and you find a data breach that is notifiable, then you must make the data subjects aware without undue delay and report the breach to the ICO within 72 hours.

Who is held accountable whenever there is a breach of data confidentiality?

Businesses can be held responsible if a data breach occurs due to their own security failings. They could face fines by the ICO as well as being liable for compensation claims made by those affected mentally or financially.

Can an individual be held responsible for a data breach?

If a data breach occurs in a company and the actions of a particular individual are found to be at fault then the company may take action such as re-training the employee in data protection security.