Disciplinary Investigation At Work Data Breach Claims Guide

Disciplinary Investigation At Work Data Breach Claims Guide

Disciplinary Investigation At Work Data Breach Claims Guide

In this guide, we will discuss when you may be eligible to claim compensation for a disciplinary investigation at work data breach that compromised your personal information. Some of the subjects we cover include personal data, the legislation determining how it is processed, and the time limits for beginning a data breach claim. We also explain how much compensation could be awarded for this type of claim and how payouts are calculated.

A breach of your personal data could have consequences that affect both your health and finances. This guide will explain how a data breach solicitor could help you through the claims process without having to pay ongoing charges for their services.

Keep reading this guide for more information. In addition, you can contact our team of advisers to ask your questions directly. Our team is available 24/7, so this free consultation can occur whenever is most convenient for your schedule. To learn more:

Select A Section

  1. What Is A Disciplinary Investigation At Work Data Breach?
  2. Which Types Of Data Could Be Impacted By Workplace Data Breaches?
  3. Limitation Periods To Claim For Workplace Data Breaches
  4. What Could You Claim After A Disciplinary Investigation At Work Data Breach?
  5. Contact Our Team If Impacted By A Disciplinary Investigation At Work Data Breach
  6. Learn More About Workplace Data Breaches

What Is A Disciplinary Investigation At Work Data Breach?

Two data protection laws called the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) work together to regulate how personal data is processed. The UK GDPR establishes which entities have specific legal responsibilities to uphold. These are called data controllers and processors. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), an independent watchdog that ensures your data rights are upheld, summarises the definition of data controllers and processors as:

  • Controllers decide to collect and process personal data. They also decide why they are doing this.
  • Processors act under the instruction of a data controller to process personal data. A data controller and processor can be the same entity.

An employer may need to process your personal data. For instance, they have a legal obligation to disclose employee details as well as salary information to HMRC for tax purposes, which means they must process it.

We’ll explain more about personal data in a later section, but for now, we’d like to mention that the ICO summarises a data breach as a security incident that affects the availability, integrity or confidentiality of personal data. Speak to our advisers if you have evidence showing that your employer compromised information related to a disciplinary action.

Eligibility To Claim For A Disciplinary At Work Data Breach

You could be eligible to begin a disciplinary data breach claim when you can show that your employer did not uphold their legal responsibilities when processing your personal data. This is called positive wrongful conduct. For instance, an employer data breach could include:

  • Your employer fails to redact your name from a witness account you give during disciplinary proceedings. This failure to redact risks identifying you and could lead to workplace discrimination.
  • The company’s HR department verbally discloses details of your disciplinary records to another employee.
  • Your employer sends an email scheduling your disciplinary meeting to the wrong email address, alerting an employee to information they don’t have clearance to know about.

Contact our advisers to discuss your circumstances. They can help you understand when you may be eligible to claim for a disciplinary investigation at work data breach.

Which Types Of Data Could Be Impacted By Workplace Data Breaches?

According to the legislation mentioned above, personal data is any information that can identify you as a living person, either in isolation or combined with other pieces of data. So, for example, personal data could include your:

  • Name
  • Contact details
  • Personal address

Furthermore, a breach of personal information might involve special category data. It is a requirement to have more protections in place for this type of personal information, due to its sensitive nature. For instance, special category data includes:

  • Trade union membership
  • Sexual orientation
  • Religious beliefs

Speak to our advisers if you have evidence showing your personal data was compromised during a workplace disciplinary process.

Limitation Periods To Claim For Workplace Data Breaches

When making a personal data breach claim, you generally have 6 years to start. However, this limit changes to 1 year when you claim against a public body. Speak to our advisers to learn more about the time limits you may have to observe.

What Could You Claim After A Disciplinary Investigation At Work Data Breach?

An employee data protection breach claim could include payouts for up to two heads of claim. These are intended to reflect two forms of harm you could experience: non-material and material damage.

Non-material damage can include various forms of psychological injury you experience due to the breach of your personal data. For example, this could include anxiety you suffer due to the potential ramifications of having your personal information exposed.

A data breach solicitor will usually turn to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG) to help assess this aspect of compensation for a data breach. We’ve included a table below showing some of the figures found in this document. However, our table and the JCG’s compensation brackets should only be considered guides. This is because any compensation you receive is determined by your actual circumstances.

JCG Compensation Guideline Examples

Edit
Harm Experienced Judicial College Guidelines (JCG) Severity Description
(a) Psychological Harm £54,830 to £115,730 Severe Injured person suffers marked problems in relation to factors like work, family relationships, and extent to which treatment would be successful.
(b) Psychological Harm £19,070 to £54,830 Moderately Severe Significant problems as related to the factors mentioned above. Overall, the prognosis is more optimistic.
(c) Psychological Harm £5,860 to £19,070 Moderate Any problems as related to the factors mentioned above show significant improvement by the time of trial. Good prognosis.
(d) Psychological Harm £1,540 to £5,860 Less Severe Award considers the length of time factors are experienced and extent to which activities and sleep were disrupted.
(a) Reactive Anxiety Disorder £59,860 to £100,670 Severe Injured person experiences permanent effects that prevent them from functioning at pre-trauma levels.
(b) Reactive Anxiety Disorder £23,150 to £59,860 Moderately Severe Better prognosis than above, though effects are likely to cause problems for the foreseeable future.
(c) Reactive Anxiety Disorder £8,180 to £23,150 Moderate Large recovery and any continuing effects are not overly disabling.
(d) Reactive Anxiety Disorder £3,950 to £8,180 Less Severe Virtual full recovery made within 1-2 years. Only minor symptoms persist beyond this point.

Additional Forms Of Damage

Your claim may also benefit from a payout for material damage. This is any financial harm you experience because of a data breach. For instance, this may involve the expenses of seeing a counsellor due to the trauma you experienced or the moving costs incurred by relocating for a new job. Speak to our team of advisers if you’d like to know more about claiming for material damage.

Contact Our Team If Impacted By A Disciplinary Investigation At Work Data Breach

If you have evidence to show that a disciplinary investigation at work data breach has compromised your personal information, it may be worth seeking the assistance of a lawyer.  Data breach compensation claim solicitors could use their experience and knowledge to help you navigate the claims process.

Furthermore, our solicitors could offer their services under a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA). This type of No Win No Fee agreement means you wouldn’t have to pay for the solicitor’s services if your claim fails.

Instead, a No Win No Fee solicitor would take a success fee from the compensation you are awarded after a successful claim. This fee is legislatively capped, so you will always receive the majority of your compensation.

Speak To Our Expert Team

If you are considering trying to sue a company for a data breach, our team could help. Our advisers can offer you a free consultation, allowing you to ask questions you may have about the claims process. Additionally, if they feel your claim is valid and you wish to proceed, they can put you in touch with one of our solicitors. Find out more today:

Learn More About Workplace Data Breaches

Further data breach claim guides that may help:

What Are My Rights After A Customer Service Data Breach?

A Data Breach Made My Mental Health Problems Worse – Could I Claim?

How Do You Report A Data Breach To The ICO?

Third-party resources about this topic:

Data Awareness – Guidance for families and individuals from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)

Make A Complaint – Government resource about how to complain when you think your data is being misused or stored insecurely

Incident Trends – Information from the ICO about the types and frequency of different forms of data security incidents.

Get information on making a gym data breach claim with our helpful guide.

It’s our hope that this guide has provided useful information about when you may be eligible to claim for a disciplinary investigation at work data breach. If you still have questions, speak to our team using one of the methods described above.