Can I Claim Compensation If A Letter Is Sent To The Wrong Address?
By Lewis Cobain. Last Updated 20th October 2023. In this guide, we look at making a data breach claim if a letter is sent to the wrong address that should have been sent to you.
During the course of the guide, we’ll look at how the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) have been introduced to help protect personal data. The idea behind this legislation is to stop personally identifiable information about you (the data subject) from being used in a way you wouldn’t agree with.
Legal Expert is here to help if you are interested in claiming for a wong postage address data breach. When you call, we’ll conduct a no-obligation assessment of your case and give free legal advice. If your claim is suitable our data breach lawyers can get right to work.
To learn more about our claiming compensation and how it works, why not check out our video below:
Please call today if you’d like to find out more on 0800 073 8804. Otherwise, please read on to find out more about postal data breaches.
Select A Section
- Could I Claim If A Letter For Me Is Sent To The Wrong Address?
- How Could A Letter Get Sent To The Wrong Address?
- Judging The Severity Of A Data Breach
- What To Do If A Letter Is Sent To The Wrong Address
- Non-Material Damages Under The UK GDPR
- Compensation Payouts For A Breach Of Data Protection
- Can I Claim With A No Win No Fee Lawyer?
- Make A Data Breach Claim With The Help Of Legal Expert
- Learn More About Human Error Data Breaches
- FAQs Wrong Postage Address Data Breach Claims
Could I Claim If A Letter For Me Is Sent To The Wrong Address?
Personal data is any information that could identify you directly or in combination with other information. Any organisation that processes your personal data must adhere to the rules and regulations found within the DPA and the UK GDPR, as together, these make up data protection laws. If an organisation fails to take the necessary steps to protect your personal data, this could lead to a personal data breach.
A personal data breach is a security incident that affects the confidentiality, availability and integrity of personal data.
If a letter for you is sent to the wrong address, to be eligible to make a claim for data breach compensation, you will need to prove the following:
- The breach must have been caused by the organisation’s failings.
- Your personal data must have been compromised in the breach.
- As a result of the personal data breach, you must have suffered financial or mental harm.
If you are eligible to make a personal data breach claim, you must also ensure that you start proceedings within the correct time limit. Generally, you will have 6 years to start a personal data breach claim. However, this is reduced to 1 year if you are making your claim against a public body.
Contact our advisors today to see if you could have a valid personal data breach claim if a confidential letter was sent to the wrong address.
How Could A Letter Get Sent To The Wrong Address?
Let’s now take a look at the types of incidents that could lead to a wrong postage address data breach.
Wrong Address
Quite simply, if a letter is sent to the wrong address, it could mean that a data subject is identified by the person who receives the letter.
The data controller may send a letter to an incorrect address because they don’t have your new one on file. In that instance, if you haven’t notified them of your change of address, they might not be liable for the mistake.
However, if they do have your correct address because you’ve notified them of it, and they send it to the wrong one anyway, the data breach could be seen as their fault.
Multiple Wrong Letters Being Sent
As part of the UK GDPR, personal data must be kept up to date. If a mistake is spotted it should be corrected or deleted. Therefore, when an organisation has contact with a data subject, it may be wise to confirm their current address. This action could prevent multiple letters from being sent to the wrong address.
Multiple Letters Sent In A Single Envelop
Another type of breach is where an envelope contains multiple letters that weren’t all intended for the recipient. In a recent example of this, a council resident reported seeing the names, addresses, tenant reference numbers, payments and dates of other tenants. As most of that information could identify other data subjects, a potential data breach may have occurred.
Source: https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19458894.oxford-city-council-apologises-potential-data-breach/
Judging The Severity Of A Data Breach
When assessing the nature of a potential data breach, it’s important to look at how severe it was. Some questions that might be asked include:
- What information was exposed?
- Who was it exposed to?
- How was the data used or how might it be used?
A data breach is only notifiable to the ICO if it risks the rights and freedoms of data subjects. Other data breaches should be recorded, but don’t need to be reported to the ICO.
Remember, you can only make a claim if the breach has caused you to suffer mentally or financially and if it was caused by the company’s security failings, for example.
If you would like us to check how serious your case is and whether you might be entitled to compensation, why not call today?
Shielding Letter Data Breach
An example of a serious data breach is where 13,000 letters were sent by the NHS Wales to the wrong addresses. The letters were intended for the most vulnerable patients who were being advised to shield during the Coronavirus pandemic. As well as identifying the individuals as being vulnerable to anybody who opened the letter, the mistake could’ve put the intended recipient at risk because they’d not received the advice required about staying isolated.
The Welsh NHS reported the incident to the ICO.
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-52283236
What To Do If A Letter Is Sent To The Wrong Address
So, if you become aware that a data breach involving your personal data has happened, what should you do? Well, we’d suggest that you:
- Collect any evidence that’s available. This might include a letter or email confirming the breach has happened. You could also use bank statements to show resultant losses or medical records to show diagnosed mental injuries caused or worsened by the breach.
- Call Legal Expert to ask for a free review of your case.
Another question you might ask is whether the ICO should be informed about the breach. The answer is that you don’t need to involve the ICO to take legal action. However, it may be helpful to have a report on the data breach if extra evidence is needed to support your claim. It’s probably a good idea to discuss this with your solicitor (if you use the services of one) and they’ll advise whether you need to speak with the ICO or not.
If you do, the process to do so is as follows:
- Raise a formal complaint with the data controller about your concerns.
- Await a response and escalate the complaint if necessary.
- If you don’t get a satisfactory response, before 3 months have passed since your last update from the data controller, contact the ICO.
Again, the ICO may decide to take action against a company found to be breaking data protection laws. However, they won’t necessarily get involved in your claim for compensation.
Compensation Payouts For A Breach Of Data Protection
As discussed, your data breach compensation amount could include both material and non-material damage. In this section, we are going to look deeper into non-material damage.
Prior to the Court of Appeal ruling in the Vidal-Hall and Others v Google Inc. case, you could only claim for your non-material damage if you could demonstrate that you suffered financial harm as well. It set a precedent in how data breach compensation could be awarded. So, now you can claim for psychological harm, such as stress due to a data beach, without also suffering material damage.
Another important ruling was in the 2015 Gulati and Others v MGN Limited case. It was in this ruling that the court decided non-material damage in a data breach claim could be assigned value in the same way as psychological harm in a personal injury claim.
To help value injuries, legal professionals use the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG). This is a document that lists compensation brackets for various injuries, including any that might occur to a claimant’s mental health.
In the table below, we’ve provided mental health damage from the JCG. Due to the differences in claims, it is only to be used as guidance.
| Claim Type | Level | Settlement Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psychiatric Injury (a) | Severe | £54,830 to £115,730 | The prognosis is very poor and the personal has severe problems coping with working life and will experience future vulnerability. |
| Psychiatric Injury (b) | Moderately Severe | £19,070 to £54,830 | Despite suffering with serious issues, there is a more optimistic prognosis. |
| Psychiatric Injury (c) | Moderate | £5,860 to £19,070 | A good prognosis with significant improvements made despite suffering with various issues. |
| Psychiatric Injury (d) | Less Severe | £1,540 to £5,860 | Factors such as how much sleep and daily activities were affected will impact the amount awarded. |
| PTSD (a) | Severe | £59,860 to £100,670 | Permanent issues will prevent the claimant from functioning the same as they did pre-trauma. |
| PTSD (b) | Moderately Severe | £23,150 to £59,860 | Room for some recovery with professional help and a better prognosis. |
| PTSD (c) | Moderate | £8,180 to £23,150 | A large recovery will have been made and any persisting effects will not be grossly disabling. |
| PTSD (d) | Less Severe | £3,950 to £8,180 | An almost complete recovery will have been made within 1-2 years. |
To speak to an advisor about the harm you suffered due to a delivery to the wrong address that included your personal data, call the number at the top of this page.
Can I Claim With A No Win No Fee Lawyer?
If your personal data was breached when an organisation sent a letter to the wrong address, you may be looking to be compensated for the harm this has caused you. You could benefit from having the support of a specialist data breach solicitor. One of our solicitors could support your case. They have lots of experience with data breach claims.
Typically, our data breach solicitors offer their services under a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA). This is a type of No Win No Fee arrangement.
When your solicitor works under this type of agreement, you won’t be asked to pay any upfront or ongoing fees for their services. You also won’t have to pay for their work on your case if your claim is unsuccessful.
If your claim has a successful outcome, your solicitor will take a success fee out of your award. The law limits the percentage that can be taken as this fee.
For further information about what to do if your personal data was sent to the wrong address, get in touch with one of the advisors from our team. They can also assess whether you have valid grounds for a claim, and if you do, you could be passed on to one of our solicitors.
Make A Data Breach Claim With The Help Of Legal Expert
If you believe that you’ve been harmed by a wrong postage address data breach and would like to take action, why not call Legal Expert? To do so, you can:
- Call our specialists on 0800 073 8804.
- Ask an advisor to review your options online.
- Email info@legalexpert.co.uk to tell us about how you’ve been affected.
- Use our claim online form so we can contact you at a time best for you.
If you have a busy schedule, don’t worry. Our advice line operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so please call when it’s convenient for you.
Learn More About Human Error Data Breaches
Hopefully, our guide has explained whether a letter to the wrong address is a breach of data protection. To support you further, we have added a few more guides that could come in handy.
- Reporting A Data Breach – ICO guidance on when and how you should report potential data breaches.
- Depression Self-Assessment – This NHS tool can be used to help understand how depression is affecting you.
- Freedom Of Information – Details from the government on when you can ask public bodies for information.
- Data Breach Stress – Guidance on when you could claim for stress caused by a confirmed data breach.
- Loss Of Medical Records – Information about what problems can arise if your medical records are lost.
- Claiming Data Breach Compensation – This article explains why you might be allowed to claim for different types of data breaches.
If you need any more advice on what to do if a letter for you was sent to the wrong address, get in touch.
