Find Out How To Make A Credit Score Data Breach Claim

Your credit score is key financial information that lenders use to determine your borrowing risk, helps you navigate your personal finances, and provides utility companies with a means of checking whether you can pay your bills. An exposure of this personal data can have significant and adverse impacts, so we’ve made this guide to starting a credit score data breach claim.

Below you’ll find sections on what a personal data breach is, how the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s independent body for upholding information rights, protect your personal information and when you could make a claim against an organisation for exposing your personal data.

In our final section, we examine how our panel of expert data breach solicitors can help you claim compensation under a specific type of No Win No Fee contract.

You can get a free eligiblity assessment and ask any further questions by speaking to one of our advisors. Get in touch with the team today using the contact information given here:

• Call us on 020 8050 6279.
• Contact us online.
• Click the live chat button on your screen.

Select A Section

1. Can I Make A Credit Score Data Breach Claim?
2. What Compensation Could I Get For A Credit Score Data Breach?
3. Can I Be Compensated For Any Data Breach Caused Financial Losses?
4. What Organisations Or Individuals Could Have Access To My Credit Score?
5. What Are Some Credit Score Data Breach Examples?
6. What Regulations Are In Place To Protect My Credit Score Data?
7. How Can I Make A Credit Score Data Breach Claim?
8. Can I Make A No Win No Fee Claim If My Credit Score Data Was Breached?
9. Learn More

Can I Make A Credit Score Data Breach Claim?

Yes, you could make a credit score data breach claim if you can show that wrongful conduct resulted in your personal information being lost, destroyed or exposed. The ICO defines a personal data breach in general terms as a security incident that impacts the availability, integrity, or confidentiality of personal data. This definition covers both human error and malicious intent data breaches.

Before we set out the eligibility criteria, there are 3 relevant parties you need to be aware of:

• Data subjects are the living, identifiable individuals to whom the personal data relates.
• The data controller is the organisation that decides how and why your personal data is to be processed.
• Data processors are external parties that process data on behalf of data controllers. Not every data processor will make use of these services and may choose to process any data themselves.

Both data controllers and data processors are required to protect any personal data they handle in accordance with two key pieces of legislation: The UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. Now that’s out of the way, the eligibility criteria are as follows:

1. The data controller or processor engaged in some wrongful conduct contrary to the UK GDPR.
2. This conduct resulted in a personal data breach in which your personal information was affected.
3. The breach resulted in financial loss, psychological injury or both.

You can get a free eligibility assessment and find out more about claiming personal data breach compensation by speaking to our advisors.

What Compensation Could I Get For A Credit Score Data Breach?

Compensation for a credit score data claim could be as high as £66,920 to £141,240 in the most severe cases of psychological distress as per the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG), not including the financial impacts. Of course, such figures would be in the extreme of cases, but they nonetheless highlight the very serious effects that can occur when personal information is exposed.

There are two types of damage for which compensation can be paid out in a successful claim for a personal data breach. The financial losses are referred to as material damage, which we’ll look at in the next section, whereas any psychiatric distress is called non-material damage.

Below we have created this table containing the JCG for psychiatric injury to offer guidance on how these types of injuries are valued. We should point out that the first figure was not taken from the JCG.

Compensation Table

Please note that this table is intended to serve as guidance only.

Type of Harm	Severity	Guideline Payout Figure	Notes
Very Serious Psychological Harm with Material Damage	Very Serious	Up to £500,000 and above	Very serious psychological distress coupled with significant material damage such as medical costs, lost income and security expenses.
General Psychiatric Injury	Severe (a)	£66,920 to £141,240	Marked problems with regard to ability to cope with life, work and personal relationships. The prognosis will be very poor
	Moderately Severe (b)	£23,270 to £66,920	Cases where the prognosis is much more optimistic than in (a) but significant problems across many aspects of life are present.
	Moderate (c)	£7,150 to £23,270	A marked improvement in the person's condition with a good prognosis.
	Less Severe (d)	£1,880 to £7,150	Impact on sleep patterns and daily activity are considered in this bracket.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder	Severe (a)	£73,050 to £122,850	Bad effects across all aspects of life preventing the affected person from functioning anywhere close to their pre-trauma levels.
	Moderately Severe (b)	£28,250 to £73,050	A better prognosis but significant disability for the foreseeable future.
	Moderate (c)	£9,980 to £28,250	Cases where the injured person has mostly recovered and isn't experiencing any gross disablement.
	Less Severe (d)	£4,820 to £9,980	The injured person will have mostly recovered within 2 years with only minor symptoms persisting any longer.

To learn more about claiming in your specific circumstances, talk to our team today using the details provided below.

Can I Be Compensated For Any Data Breach Caused Financial Losses?

As part of your credit score data breach claim, you could receive compensation for financial losses. As we said above, this is referred to as material damage. The costs that could be claimed as part of your compensation are as follows:

• Loss of earnings due to time taken off work.
• The cost of security or even relocation if your address was exposed and your safety has been compromised.
• Medical expenses for therapy, counselling or medications.

You’ll need to provide supporting evidence of any costs you are seeking compensation for. This can include your payslips, as well as receipts for any purchases and invoices for counselling or other treatment services.

The information given here has been included to explain how data breach compensation amounts may be determined. Each claim includes its own special features, so no two claims are ever valued in quite the same way. To find out more about starting a claim in your particular circumstances, talk to our advisors using the details provided below.

What Organisations Or Individuals Could Have Access To My Credit Score?

Any number of financial institutions could have access to your credit score. We have provided a number of examples here:

• Banks and building societies.
• Mortgage providers.
• Moneylenders.
• Credit reference agencies.

A few less obvious organisations could include:

• Utility companies may perform credit checks to check if customers can reliably pay their bills.
• Landlords may do the same for similar reasons.
• Potential employers, particularly in workplaces that deal with financial or sensitive information, may look at your credit history as part of a background check.

All of these organisations, and persons working for them, should take the necessary measures to ensure your credit score and history are known only to the required persons and strictly for the purpose of checking your credit. 

What Are Some Credit Score Data Breach Examples?

Here we have included some genuine credit score data breach examples from the last 10-15 years. While these are the most severe cases, they nevertheless show how failing to take the necessary measures to protect customer data can have serious ramifications.

Dixons Carphone

The Dixons Carphone data breach remains the largest ever personal data breach in the UK. 14 million personal and records and the details from 5.6 million payment cards were accessed by cyber criminals who installed malicious software on over 5000 tills across the country.

The exposed personal information from this enormous retail data breach included:

• Details of failed credit checks.
• Credit card numbers.
• Contact information.
• Customer names and addresses.

The ICO issued their maximum fine (at the time of the breach) of £500,000, having fined subsidiary Carphone Warehouse £400,000 the previous year. The company lost massive amounts of profit, closing 100 stores, and permanently rebranding into Currys PLC in 2021

Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/09/dixons-carphone-fined-500000-for-massive-data-breach

Equifax

In one of the largest data breaches ever, the personal information of 147 million people, including 15 million UK customers, was exposed due to multiple failures by credit rating agency Equifax. 

Personal information such as card details, names and dates of birth and addresses were all impacted. The ICO issued its then maximum fine of £500,000. The US regulator, the Federal Trade Commission, were subject to no such limitations however, and handed down a fine of $700 million. The issue centred on the fact that Equifax failed to check for vulnerable systems and plug the gaps in the security software. It was also discovered that some of the more sensitive information stored by Equifax had not been encrypted.

Sources:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-45574163

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49070596

You can learn more about starting a credit score data breach claim by talking to one of our advisors. Contact our team at a time that suits you using the details given below.

What Regulations Are In Place To Protect My Credit Score Data?

The key regulation that is in place to protect your credit score data is the UK General Data Protection Regulation. We touched on this piece of legislation above, but how does it protect your personal data?

Article 6 of the UK GDPR sets out the lawful bases for processing personal data. Whenever a data or controller or processor processes personal information, at least one of the following must apply:

1. Consent, where the data subject has given their clear and informed consent for their personal information to be used for a clearly specified purpose.
2. Contract, the data controller has contractual obligations to ensure the data is processed.
3. Legal obligations, processing the personal data is legally required.
4. Vital interests, the sharing or processing of personal is required to preserve life. Often seen in the healthcare sector where doctors need to know medical information in order treat emergency patients.
5. Public tasks, processing is needed for public interest or official functions. For example local authorities need to process information for council tax and providing services.
6. Legitimate interests, processing is necessary for the legitimate interest of the data controller or a third party.

You can learn more about how the law protects your personal data, and what to do when that law is breached by talking to our advisors.

How Can I Make A Credit Score Data Breach Claim?

You can make a credit score data breach claim by providing as much supporting evidence as you can. Proving both that the data controller failed to protect your personal information, as well as showing what impact this had on you will greatly increase your chance of receiving compensation.

Evidence examples can include:

• Your data breach confirmation letter from the data controller informing that your personal information was exposed in a security incident.
• Any other communication from the data controller telling you take any action or providing situational updates.
• Proof of financial losses.
• Medical evidence of any psychiatric injury.

The ICO may also open an investigation into data controllers, and take disciplinary actions or even issue fines if shortcomings are not addressed. You will not receive compensation from the ICO but the details from the investigation will help you to demonstrate the controller engaged in some wrongful conduct.

To find out more about gathering evidence, talk to our team today.

Can I Make A No Win No Fee Claim If My Credit Score Data Was Breached?

You could very much make a No Win No Fee claim if your credit score data was breached, provided you meet the eligibility criteria. To get your free consultation regarding a potential credit score data breach claim, call our advisors today.

If eligible, you’ll be connected with a highly experienced data breach solicitor from our expert panel who can provide a range of services that suit your particular needs. This can include:

• Arranging an independent psychiatric assessment.
• Helping you to collect supporting evidence.
• Determining a fair compensation figure.
• Communicating with the defendant’s solicitors and keeping you informed of how your case is progressing.
• Explaining all the legal jargon to you.
• Negotiating a compensation amount.

The solicitors on our panel work on a strictly No Win No Fee basis with a type of contract called a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA). Claiming under a CFA protects you from solicitor fees both at the start of and during the claim. There are also no fees if the claim fails.

A successful claim will see you awarded compensation and the solicitor’s fee, called a success fee, is deducted from this. The Conditional Fee Agreements Order 2013 caps the maximum percentage that can be charged for a success fee at 25%, so most of the compensation will be going to straight to you.

Contact Our Team Of Advisors

You can receive a free eligibility assessment and ask any further questions by speaking with one of our advisors. Get in touch with the team today using the contact information given here:

• Call us on 020 8050 6279.
• Contact us online.
• Click the live chat button on your screen.

Learn More

You can read more of our data breach claims guides here:

• Find out if you could claim after an internal email data breach here.
• See if you could be eligible to seek compensation after a hospital data breach with this guide.
• Learn more about making a flight information data breach claim here.

We have also included these external resources for further information:

• Access mental health services on the NHS website.
• The government has issued this guidance on data protection, which you can read here.
• Read the top tips for staying secure online from the National Cyber Security Centre.

Thank you for reading our guide to making a credit score data breach claim. You can ask any further questions and get a free eligibility assessment by talking to our advisors today.