Ethically handling data – the responsibilities of businesses and organisations

Businesses and organisations today can no longer ignore the importance of ethically handling data, as it is vital in ensuring customer trust, as well as legal compliance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

As such, any third party owes a responsibility to the customers or users who have trusted them with their personal data, as the security of this data is essential to personal safety and privacy.

When a third party fails in this duty, there can be an ethical violation at play, for which they can also be held accountable by the law. We believe that the mishandling of personal data is always a grave breach of duty, even when there is no malicious intent behind the breach. Virgin Media failed in their duties of data protection, so any affected victims have the right to claim compensation.

Ethically handling data under the GDPR

The GDPR, which came into force in 2018, governs the ways in which all individuals and organisations are permitted to handle data, both in digital and physical form. Under this statute of law, there must be a “lawful basis” for processing data. In addition, under the “security principle”, the processing of data must be secure through the application of “appropriate technical and organisational measures”.

In the case of Virgin Media, the security principle has been violated, because the data breach arose due to a database being left unsecured and available online. This meant that unauthorised third parties could access the data without having to breach security defences, as they were not in place.

To exacerbate the data exposure further, Virgin Media did not identify the insecure database until 10 months after, which would seem to suggest that they were not sufficiently monitoring their systems.

Compensation for unethical data handling

The Virgin Media data breach has undoubtedly shown that the company was not ethically handling data in our view. While there is no evidence to suggest they were processing data for unlawful purposes, the insufficient security can mean that the 900,000 affected victims have a valid reason to make a compensation claim.

The ethical violation of a data breach can, in fact, be very persuasive when making a compensation claim. When making a claim for the distress of a data breach, many clients highlight the loss of trust they suffered after a company neglected their data protection duties, and how this made them paranoid or reluctant to entrust their data to a third party again. Alongside claims for material damage, such as financial losses, claims for distress will likely make up the majority of the compensation claims in the Virgin Media group action.

Make your claim today

If a company has not been ethically handling data, you can help to hold them accountable by making a compensation claim for the data breach. We understand how betrayed and mistrustful the affected Virgin Media victims must feel, so we urge anyone affected by the data breach to join our group action.

Your Lawyers is a leading consumer action and data breach law firm, with years of experience in fighting for the consumer rights of our clients. We currently represent thousands of claimants in over 50 different multi-party and group action claims.

Fill in one of our sign-up forms today, as you may be eligible for No Win, No Fee representation in the Virgin Media group action.

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