You have a right to have your personal data kept private and secure when you share it with a third party. If this right is violated due to a data breach by an optician you could be entitled to make a claim for compensation. This is because a breach of data protection and personal information is a breach of the law and your rights. A data breach by an optician could cause you significant stress and put you at risk of other consequences of having your personal information accessed. Those who should not have access to your information can do if mistakes are made by those who handle our personal data.
Opticians data breach compensation claims guide
In a situation such as this, you could have the right to make a data breach compensation claim. In a claim like this, it will be your job to prove that the organisation didn’t do enough to keep your personal data secure and private. Very often claimants use a data breach solicitor to help with cases like this. We can help you with both finding out whether you could make a claim, and with finding a solicitor to make a claim.
So, if you wish to speak to our claims team, there are a number of methods you could use.
- Call 0161 696 9685 to reach one of our advisors
- Request a call back on this page
- Start a claim online with this page.
Select A Section
- A Guide On Claiming Compensation For A Data Breach By An Optician
- What Is A Data Breach By An Optician?
- What Is Third Party Sharing Of Medical Data?
- Enforcement Action Taken By The ICO
- Calculating Amounts Of Compensation For A Data Breach By An Optician
- Types Of Compensation Awarded For A Data Breach By An Optician
- How To Complain To The Information Commissioner
- No Win No Fee Compensation Claims For A Data Breach By An Optician
- How Could A Data Breach Lawyer Help You?
- What To Do If You Are The Victim Of A Medical Data Breach
- Contact A Specialist Data Breach Solicitor
- FAQs On Data Breaches By An Optician
- Where To Learn More
A Guide On Claiming Compensation For A Data Breach By An Optician
This page is a starter guide to making a data breach compensation claim. It might be a good idea to familiarise yourself with the laws surrounding data protection. To this end, this guide will spend some time going over what exactly the obligations of an optician are when it comes to the security of your personal data. We will establish what type of situation could give you grounds to make a compensation claim. We will help to illustrate this by going over some examples of cases where the ICO has taken action against companies for not protecting their customer’s data properly.
Also included in this guide is information on how the compensation claim process can get started. We will look at how you can begin to put together evidence in support of your claim. In this guide, we will discuss how the amount of compensation you could be entitled to claim is worked out. We will demonstrate this with the aid of our compensation calculator table. No Win No Fee data breach solicitors can help with claims of this nature. The benefits of this payment structure will be included just before the end of the guide. If there is anything else you wanted to know that is not explained in enough detail for you, then please call our team.
What Is A Data Breach By An Optician?
A data breach is any instance in which a third party is allowed to access your personal data without authorisation. It is also when your personal information is destroyed, altered, accessed or lost in an unlawful or accidental way. This could happen either accidentally or due to a deliberate decision to violate the law. Some examples of how a data breach could occur include:
- Talking with colleagues about patients health is overheard.
- Failing to delete or destroy documents or files containing personal information correctly
- Keeping the information on an insecure network that is vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
This could cause a number of different potential consequences. The victim could suffer feelings of anxiety and stress stemming from the violation of your privacy. The fear of potential consequences to the possibility of identity theft or harassment stemming from the accessing and use of your personal data by cybercriminals could also be an issue.
A data breach of personally identifiable information cannot only cause financial harm but also mental anguish and this could lead you to being entitled to make a claim for compensation. It is not a legal requirement to have a data breach solicitor support your claim but they will have the experience and knowledge needed to know how to file the claim correctly. You and a solicitor would make the case for you to be awarded compensation in return for the harm that the data breach caused. This could go to court, but many compensation claims are settled before they reach that point.
What Is Third Party Sharing Of Medical Data?
It must be said that your consent is not always needed to share your data with another organisation. Although we are no longer part of the European Union we have enacted the GDPR laws within UK legislation in the form of the Data Protection Act 2018. The requirements set out in the GDPR and Data Protection Act give data subjects more say over how their personal data is handled. Data Controllers are those who collect a person’s personal information for specific use. The Data Controller must ensure that any personal data is secure and not accessible through unauthorised methods.
The regulations set out by the GDPR include:
- Organisations must collect data in a way that is honest, transparent and legal.
- Controllers can only collect the amount and type of data that they need for the purposes they stated when collecting it.
- Use data for purposes stated.
- An organisation cannot continue to store data beyond the point where it is no longer required.
- Keep the data it collects and stores up to date and accurate
- Take steps to ensure that the data is kept secure and protected.
- An organisation is responsible for proving that they have complied with all of the above conditions.
If you would like to know more about the conditions of the GDPR, you can visit this website for further details.
Enforcement Action Taken By The ICO
A private medical firm fined £200,000 in 2017. A company providing IVF treatment services was found to have allowed the transcripts of appointments between its doctors and service users to be accessed online. The medical company had been sending unencrypted audio records to a company in India. The ICO found that the private health firm was responsible for the data breach as an entity should ensure that it employs subcontractors that act responsibly. The ICO handed down a £200,000 fine. You can find out more about this incident and others like it on the website of the ICO.
Calculating Amounts Of Compensation For A Data Breach By An Optician
According to a legal precedent set in the case Vidal-Hall and others v Google Inc [2015], damages can be awarded for the mental distress caused by a data breach. A data breach, along with the breach of your trust and privacy can cause you immense distress and emotional anxiety. Having your personal data accessed, especially if it results in you being the victim of fraud or theft, is very much the equivalent of having a burglar break into your home. This can leave a victim suffering from mental health symptoms like those of PTSD.
See the compensation calculator table below for examples of the amounts of compensation you could receive for different degrees of mental distress and trauma. These figures are based on Judicial College Guidelines JCG and are up to date as of 2019. The JCG is a publication that is often used in personal injury cases to value the suffering caused by injuries and illnesses. For more information on the Judicial College, see this page here.
| Injury | Compensation |
|---|---|
| Severe psychiatric damage | £51,460 to £108,620 |
| Moderately severe psychiatric damage | £17,900 to £51,460 |
| Moderate | £5,500 to £17,900 |
| 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 | £3,710 to £7,680 |
Types Of Compensation Awarded For A Data Breach By An Optician
There are two kinds of compensation that could make up your compensation payout if your claim is successful. Material damages and non-material damages. Non-material damages were described in the previous section. They cover the damage done to your health by the consequences of a data breach. In the case of data breaches, non-material damages can be awarded for the harm done to your mental health.
Material damages cover the financial losses caused by a data breach. There are many ways that a data breach could cause potentially extensive losses. A data breach could expose you to identity theft and fraud. One of the reasons why you could potentially be entitled to claim compensation in material damages is because of the long-term effects of having your personal information breached. The breach of your financial information or banking details could result in damage to your credit score, causing you to be denied loans or mortgages in the future.
How To Complain To The Information Commissioner
The first thing you should do when you become aware of a data breach or begin to suspect that there has been a data breach is contact the company holding your data. Usually, if your personal data has been breached by an organisation and you are at risk they should inform you at the earliest possible time so that you can take precautions. The ICO state that data breaches generally should be reported to them within 72 hours. However, not all data breaches are notifiable. If some time passes without the optician’s company providing a meaningful response, then you can take things to the Information Commissioners Office.
The Information Commissioners Office is a non-departmental body of the Government. It regulates the handling of personal data. You can bring a complaint to them about a data breach and they can take up an investigation. If they find wrongdoing, they have the authority to impose a fine on the company that has allowed your data to be breached. If you wish to make a complaint it is better to do it within three months of your last contact with the opticians. In order to pursue a data breach claim, you do not have to make a complaint to the ICO. You can find information here.
No Win No Fee Compensation Claims For A Data Breach By An Optician
There is no law that makes it necessary to have a data breach solicitor represent your case. The decision is entirely yours. However, they will come equipped with experience and capabilities to ensure the case is filed correctly. And importantly within the right time limits.
Many claimants worry about the costs of a data breach solicitor. No Win No Fee agreements are a way to fund solicitors fees. Also known as a Conditional Fee Agreement they make the solicitor’s fees payable on condition the case is won. This is a more affordable way to have a solicitor represent your case for many.
The solicitors on our panel all work on a No Win No Fee basis for any claim they choose to handle. A No Win No Fee solicitor will not ask for any fees upfront. Even during the claim, a claimant does not have to pay any fees. The only time a claimant will be expected to cover their solicitor’s fees is when the claim is won and compensation is awarded. The success fee will be taken from the compensation. This is capped.
How Could A Data Breach Lawyer Help You?
A data breach lawyer can help you to make a case by assisting you in putting together evidence. They can help set out the argument for your case. Calculating the amount of compensation you are entitled to claim comes as part of the solicitor’s job. In the event that the case goes to court, they can represent you. However, many compensation claims are settled before they go to court. Call our advisors today for a free claims assessment. There is no obligation to claim. However, if they see that you have a chance of being awarded compensation they could connect you to a solicitor. All the solicitors on our panel offer their services on a No Win No Fee basis.
What To Do If You Are The Victim Of A Medical Data Breach
If you believe or become aware that you have been the victim of a data breach then your first course of action should be to notify the opticians. This gives the company the opportunity to offer a rectification of the problem before the matter has to be taken any further, and it also provides evidence. Try to keep and collect as much evidence as you can. importantly, any correspondence between you and the organisation you hold responsible for your data breach.
Moreover, if you do not receive a satisfactory reply from the company handling your data then you could make a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office. The ICO is the independent regulator of data protection laws in the UK. To bring a complaint to the ICO try to make sure you do so within three months of the last time you had meaningful contact with the company. If you wait longer than this then there is a good chance that the ICO will not investigate the matter. Additionally, the ICO does not pay compensation. This is something separate that you could do alone or with the help of a solicitor.
Contacting the ICO is not necessary, you could come directly to us with your complaint. One of our advisors can speak to you. They can assess your case and any evidence you have. Additionally, they can let you know if your case is valid. Then once they are satisfied you have a chance of compenstaion they can connect you with a solicitor.
Contact A Specialist Data Breach Solicitor
So, if you wish to speak to our claims team, there are a number of methods you could use.
- Call 0161 696 9685 to reach one of our advisors
- Request a call back on this page
- Start a claim online with this page.
FAQs On Data Breaches By An Optician
How do organisations comply with the GDPR?
In order to comply with the GDPR organisations must ensure that people’s personal data is kept secure. Also that it is protected, up to date, and is not used for any purposes other than the ones clearly stated.
Does the GDPR apply to medical records?
The GDPR applies to all records of personal information. So your doctor or your optician is obliged to protect your data in the same manner as any other organisation would. If they have breached the terms of the GDPR then they could face a fine from the ICO.
What amount could I be entitled to claim?
The amount of compensation you could be entitled to claim for a data breach depends on how badly impacted you have been by the breach. If you have been more severely affected you would be entitled to more compensation than if the effects were more minor. Call us if you would like to have an assessment done of how much compensation you could be entitled to claim.
Could I be entitled to make a data breach claim?
If you have been the victim of a data breach because of an optician’s failure to abide by data protection rules you could be entitled to seek compensation. Personal data needs to be breached in order to pursue a data breach claim. If you would like to know more about whether or not you could be entitled to make a claim, then call our team for a free consultation.
Where To Learn More
Making a data breach claim against your employer
Medical data protection breach compensation claims
Making a data breach compensation claim against a pharmacy
Written by JY
Edited by MM.