Data Breach Claim Calculator Guidance

Last Updated 4th July 2025. A data breach claim calculator can be a very useful means of estimating the compensation you could be entitled to. But what exactly is a personal data breach? Who is responsible for such occurrences? How will I show what harm was caused by having my personal data disclosed without my permission? We’re going to cover all of these questions.

As well as explaining data breaches and providing some possible examples to help your understanding, we also cover key areas such as the time limits for claiming, how data breach claims are valued and what role the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the national body for the upholding of information rights, play when it comes to holding organisations accountable for violations of data protection law.

We also explain how our panel of expert data breach solicitors could help you claim compensation under a specific type of No Win No Fee contract.

For a free assessment of your eligibility or to ask any questions about the topics covered here, get in touch with our advisors via any of the following:

• Call the team on 020 8050 6279
• You can also contact us through our website by completing our call back form.
• Open the live chat window on your screen now.

Select A Section

1. Data Breach Claim Calculator
2. What Is A Data Breach?
3. How Could Data Breaches Happen?
4. What Could Help Me Make A Data Breach Claim?
5. How Long Do I Have To Claim For A Data Breach?
6. Can Data Breach Claims Help Me Start A Claim?
7. Why Claim Data Breach Compensation Using A No Win No Fee Solicitor?
8. Learn More About How To Make A Data Breach Claim

Data Breach Claim Calculator

There are two types of damage that you could receive compensation for following a successful data breach claim:

• Material damage refers to the financial impacts of a personal data breach. We’ll discuss this in greater detail below.
• Non-material damage is the psychological harm caused from your personal information being compromised. This can range from relatively general distress and anxiety to post-traumatic stress disorder in the most serious of cases.

Calculating a possible compensation figure is one of the many things the solicitors on our panel could help you with. When determining potential compensation for non-material damage, reference can be made to your psychiatric diagnosis alongside the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG).

The JCG is a publication that details guideline compensation figures for various injuries, taken as averages from court cases in England and Wales. We have used the guidelines for psychological harm to create this compensation table, which you can use to get an idea of what compensation you could be entitled to in your particular circumstances.

Compensation Table

Please note that the first entry is not a JCG figure. This information is intended as guidance only.

Type of Injury	Severity	Guideline Payout Figure	Notes
Very Serious Psychological Harm With Financial Losses	Very Serious	Up to £500,000 +	Cases where very serious psychological distress has been caused and significant financial harm such as lost income and medical expenses has been sustained
General Psychiatric Harm	Severe (a)	£66,920 to £141,240	A very poor prognosis and marked problems relating to ability to cope with work, social life and education.
	Moderately Severe (b)	£23,270 to £66,920	The prognosis will be more optimistic but significant problems relating to the above factors will remain.
	Moderate (c)	£7,150 to £23,270	A good prognosis with a substantial recovery.
	Less Severe (d)	£1,880 to £7,150	Factors considered in this bracket are the impact on sleep and daily activity and the length of disability period.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder	Severe (a)	£73,050 to £122,850	Very bad and permanent effects across all aspects of life that prevent anything resembling the level of functioning pre-trauma.
	Moderately Severe (d)	£28,250 to £73,050	Significant y disability for the foreseeable future despite a better prognosis than in (a).
	Moderate (c)	£9,980 to £28,250	Large-scale recovery with no grossly disabling continuing effects.
	Less Severe (d)	£4,820 to £9,980	A virtual recovery within 2 years, with only minor persisting symptoms, if any.

Can I Claim For Material Damage Caused By A Data Breach?

Material damage refers the financial losses that stem from a personal data breach. As well as immediate costs, material damage also refers to ongoing and long term monetary impacts of having your personal data exposed.

What this means is material damage compensation can often be quite high. We have provided a few examples of material damage here:

• The cost of security measures such as cameras or full relocation should your address be accessed by unauthorised persons.
• Lost earnings from time taken off work to recover from the psychological distress.
• Medical costs such as prescriptions, therapy or other bills relating to the non-material damage caused.

In order to claim compensation for non material damage you will need to provide some supporting documentation, so make sure you hold onto copies of your payslips, prescription letters and other proof of the losses you incurred.

The information given in this section as well our compensation calculator are intended to act as guidance only. To get a more personalised idea of what your potential data breach claim could be worth, get in touch with our advisory team for a free consultation today.

What Is A Data Breach?

A personal data breach is defined by the ICO as an incident of security that affects the confidentiality, availability or integrity of personal information.

There are 3 relevant parties to any discussion about personal data breaches:

• The organisations that decide when, how and why your personal data will be processed are known as data controllers.
• Data controllers may use an external organisation to process data, referred to as a data processor, although not every data controller will do this.
• Finally, you have data subjects, who are the individuals to whom the personal data relates.

Under both the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018, both data controllers and processors must keep your data safe. Failing to uphold these laws can lead to security incidents where you personal data is put at risk.

We provide some specific examples of potential data breaches in the next section. The general eligibility criteria are as follows:

1. The data controller or processor failed to abide by data protection law.
2. This failure resulted in a data breach in which your personal data was affected.
3. You suffered financial losses, psychological harm or both as a result of this.

What Are The Different Types Of Sensitive Or Personal Data?

Personal data refers to information that can be used to directly or indirectly identify a living individual. This can include data such as names, addresses and contact information, as well financial data such as bank and credit card information.

The UK GDPR categorises certain types of personal information as “special category data.” What this means is that the personal data is considered to be more sensitive in nature, and therefore requires higher standards of protection.

Data relating to health, racial identity, religious beliefs and membership of trade unions are all considered special category. To find out if you’re eligible to begin a data breach claim, or to learn more about using our data breach claim calculator, contact our advisors today.

How Could Data Breaches Happen?

A data controller or processor can fail to uphold their legal obligations in a number of different ways. We have given a few possible examples here, but this list doesn’t cover all possible scenarios. Talk to our advisors to discuss your particular circumstances further.

Potential examples of personal data breaches include:

• Inadequate staff training at your bank meant physical copies of documents containing your personal information were not destroyed and instead thrown out with other office waste paper. This resulted in your address and contact information being exposed to unauthorised persons.
• Failures to update cyber security measures by your employer resulted in large amounts of employee data being exposed during a cyber attack. Your HR records were exposed during this attack.
• Administrative errors in a family court resulted in a letter being sent to the wrong address, where your abusive ex partner still lived. The letter contained details of your new place of residence. This resulted in that partner gaining knowledge of the new address of your address and your child’s whereabouts.

You can get in touch with our advisors at any time to find out if you have a valid claim using the contact information provided above.

What Could Help Me Make A Data Breach Claim?

Having explained our data breach claim calculator and given a few examples of how a personal data breach could occur, this section looks at how you could prove what harm was caused by a personal data breach.

Possible evidence examples include:

• Communication from the data controller informing you a data breach has occurred. All data controllers are required to notify affected subjects as soon as possible if the rights and freedoms of those subjects have been put at risk. This could be done via email or written letter.
• Financial documents such as your payslips, receipts or invoices detailing what material damage you experienced.
• Medical diagnosis from a psychiatric professional confirming any psychological harm that was caused.
• The findings from any ICO investigation.

As a data subject you have the right to express concerns regarding the handling of your personal information at any time to the data controller. Following an unsatisfactory response or no response at all, you can issue a complaint to the ICO, who can then open an investigation.

While the ICO do not have the power to award compensation, any findings from their investigation can be used as evidence. For more information on the evidence that could be used in a data breach claim, call the number below today.

How Long Do I Have To Claim For A Data Breach?

Typically, the time limit for data breach claims is up to 6 years. However this can vary depending on the type of organisation the claim is being made against. For additional guidance on the time limits in data breach claims, talk to our advisors using the contact information given below.

Can Data Breach Claims Help Me Start A Claim?

Whether you have used a data breach claim calculator to estimate a payout figure or not, Data Breach Claims can help you get started with a potential compensation claim. When you call our advisors, you’ll be asked a few questions about what happened, the impact it had on you and what harm was sustained.

If our advisors decide your potential claim is valid, then you’ll be connected to an expert solicitor from our panel who can provide a whole range of services including:

• Referring you to relevant mental health professionals for a formal diagnosis.
• Using that clinical report as well as your other evidence to determine a possible compensation figure.
• Keeping you informed of everything that is happening with your claim and talking you through the next steps.
• Communicating with the defendant’s representatives on your behalf and negotiating a fair and reasonable settlement amount.
• Instructing a capable and qualified barrister to represent your claim in court if those negotiations are unsuccessful.

As you can see, there are more than a few ways our panel of experts can help you seek the compensation you deserve following a personal data breach. To get a free eligibility check, or to ask any questions you might have, talk to our advisors today.

Why Claim Data Breach Compensation Using A No Win No Fee Solicitor?

Having explained how a data breach claim calculator could be of use to you when deciding whether or not to pursue a claim, we want to take the time to talk about how our panel of expert data breach solicitors could assist you.

The solicitors on our panel can offer their services on a No Win No Fee basis under what is known as a Conditional Fee Agreement or “CFA” if you’re eligible to claim. A CFA means claimants enjoy substantial benefits including:

• No fees to pay for the solicitor to begin work on the case,
• No fees for this work during the actual claims process and,
• Finally, should the claim be unsuccessful, there will be no fees to pay for that work.

Should the claim succeed, you will receive a compensation award for the material and non material damage caused. The solicitor will take a percentage of this award as their success fee. Now, because solicitor’s success fees are restricted to a maximum of 25% by The Conditional Fee Agreements Order 2013, you know you will keep the majority of any payout you receive. 

To inquire further about our data breach claim calculator or for a free assessment of your eligibility to claim, talk to our advisors today. Our friendly team are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, using the contact information provided here:

• Call the team on 020 8050 6279
• You can also contact us through our website by completing our call back form.
• Open the live chat window on your screen now.

Learn More About How To Make A Data Breach Claim

You can read some of our other data breach claims guides here:

• Read our guide to claiming compensation after a social services data breach here.
• Find out more about making a passport data breach claim with this guide.
• Learn more about what a mortgage broker data breach is and who might be eligible to claim compensation.

We have also provided these external resources for additional information:

•  See the NHS guidance on stress, what you can do to help alleviate it and what support can be made available.
• Read the Government’s latest Cyber Strategy on their website.
• You can view the guidance on data breaches from the Nation Cybersecurity Centre here.

Thank you for reading this post on using a data breach claim calculator. To learn more about data breach compensation, or to find out if your eligible to claim, contact our advisors today using the contact information provided above.