Data protection and the importance of appropriate security measures

When a data breach occurs, organisations often try to point the finger at cybercriminals or employees who made one-off errors. This may demonstrate an attempt to distract from the endemic negligence of data protection law at their company. If a company is found to have failed to implement appropriate security measures, it stands to reason that they can be held responsible for the exposure of people’s information.

Every third party in possession of your personal data has a requirement by law to protect this data sufficiently, or they risk falling foul of data protection law. Last year, Virgin Media found itself in this precarious position after mistakenly exposing the information of 900,000 people.

If you were affected by the Virgin Media data breach, you may be able to claim compensation for the harm you were caused. You can use one of our sign-up forms now to find out if you are eligible to join our group action.

Did Virgin Media have appropriate security measures?

The error at the root of the Virgin Media data breach has brought much criticism upon the company, as it does appear to indicate an absence of appropriate security measures or, at least, the incorrect application of these measures. The leak of personal data, including email addresses, postal addresses and phone numbers, was provoked due to a failure to secure a marketing database. Virgin Media stated that the database had been “incorrectly configured” by a staff member who, we can only assume, must not have been following the correct procedures.

The error was made worse by the fact that it was not identified until ten months had passed, meaning that the private data had been accessible online for almost a year. In our view, this lengthy exposure period could also indicate that appropriate security measures were not in place, due to a lack of routine monitoring procedures that could have picked this error up long before March 2020.

Holding Virgin Media accountable

The apparent failure to apply appropriate security measures meant that the personal data was accessed by an unauthorised user at least once, making victims vulnerable to several different kinds of data misuse. The security risks could include the black market sale of their information, the use of email addresses to bombard victims with phishing scams, and/or the use of phone numbers to carry out cold-calling scams.

As such, to hold Virgin Media accountable for exposing them to security risks, victims can claim compensation for any of the following factors:

• Involvement in the data breach;
• Distress caused by the data breach, to whatever degree;
• Financial losses and expenses arising from the data breach, if applicable.

You do not need to have incurred costs or lost money to be able to claim.

Join our Virgin Media group action

After-the-fact apologies are simply not enough in data breach cases where appropriate security measures could have prevented the exposure of private information. If you share in our view that Virgin Media failed to protect personal data sufficiently, and you were notified of your involvement in the data breach, you can sign-up to join our group action today.

We launched this collective fight for justice with years of data breach claims and group action experience behind us. We are fully prepared to take on thousands of claimants and fight for the maximum compensation pay-out possible.

To join our action, use our online form here and we can get your claim underway immediately.

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