As Victoria Leigh and Katherine Wakeham explain in a post covering recent developments in the UK concerning data incidents, “[o]ver the past few years, there has been an increasing number of claims against businesses and public bodies for distress caused by data breaches. The pattern is, by now, a familiar one. A claimant will make a claim for breach of data protection legislation, seeking damages at a relatively low value for the distress and anxiety they say has been caused by the data breach. This claim will be accompanied by claims for one or more of: misuse of private information, breach of confidence and negligence. Added on to the damages claimed will be the legal costs of the claimant’s lawyers, together with the after-the-event (“ATE”) insurance premium for the policy the claimant will have procured to bring a privacy claim. As a result, the defendant is faced with a difficult decision – pay over the odds for a claim where the claimant has suffered no financial loss, or fight litigation with the risk of mounting costs on both sides if the decision goes against them.”
English High Court Hands Down Ruling Calling Into Question Continued Viability of Certain Data Breach Theories Going Forward
