Dentist Data Breach Compensation Claims

Dentist data breach claims guide

Has your personal information been involved in a dentist data breach? Are you wondering whether you could make a personal data breach compensation claim? This guide will discuss what may be valid grounds for making a compensation claim. We will look at data security laws and the responsibility organisations have for protecting your personal information.

Your claim is based on its own unique set of circumstances. With no two claims being entirely the same. Because of this, you might not find answers to all of your unique questions in this guide. We can only cover so much. However, our team of expert advisors is on hand to answer any more questions you have. You can speak to them by calling 020 3870 4868. Instead, you can ask us to call you back by using our contact form to send us a message.

Select A Section:

What Is A Dentist Data Breach?
Types Of Dental Medical Record Data Breaches
How Do You Make A Medical Data Breach Claim?
What Damages Could Be Awarded For Medical Data Breach Claims?
Dentist Data Breach Compensation Calculator
Start A Dentist Data Breach Claim Today

What Is A Dentist Data Breach?

Your dentist is obliged, under UK law, to keep certain types of data safe. We will cover the types of data protected, and the laws that protect them later in this guide. But what is a data breach? A personal data breach may happen when information that can be used to identify you or tell things about you is involved in a security incident. This can mean it is disclosed, destroyed, accessed without authority, altered or lost.

What Data Is Protected By Law?

The UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) are both the main pieces of data protection law in this country. It is these regulations that are intended to protect your data

Not all forms of data and information are protected by law. Only your personal data (uniquely identifying information), and your special data (potentially exploitable facts about you). We have given examples of each of these below.

Personal data – this would be information such as, for example, your financial information (debit card or credit card numbers, and bank account information). It would also include your phone number, email address, date of birth, address, and name.
Special data – your ethnic background or genome data, religious beliefs, sexual preferences, political party memberships, etc.

What Laws Protect Data?

There are a number of different legal frameworks in place in the UK to protect you from a dental patient data breach. The UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) are both data security laws.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is responsible for enforcing adherence to these laws. It is also the organisation you would complain to about a data breach. It has the power to take action against any organisation such as a dentist, that does not follow these laws.

Data Security Incidents Reported By The Health Care Sector.

The ICO also publish data security trends each fiscal quarter. These figures have been taken from the period of Q3 2021/22 for reported data security incidents by the healthcare sector.

Non-Cybersecurity Data Incident Statistics

Types Of Dental Medical Record Data Breaches

How could a dentist data breach occur? Human error can be a cause of a data breach. As well as poor security infrastructure. Below, we give some examples of how data protection in dentistry could be potentially breached.

A dentist database containing your medical records is hacked by a cybercriminal due to poor cybersecurity defences.
An accidental breach of data protection happens when your personal or special data forms part of a verbal discussion involving a third party that is not authorised to have your data.
A data breach of your health information could happen when results are sent to the wrong address.

How Do You Make A Medical Data Breach Claim?

As a dental patient, before you move on to attempting to make a claim for a dentist data breach, there are two optional steps you might like to go through. They could be beneficial to your claim.

Contact your dentist and find out whether a data breach has happened. And if it has, how badly your data was impacted.
Make a complaint to the ICO about the data breach. You should do this within three months of any last contact with the dentist.

Accessing legal help could really be beneficial to your case. A data breach solicitor could inform you whether you are eligible to make a compensation claim. Just because an individual has had their data breached does not make them automatically eligible to be awarded compensation.

It must be proven that the data controller i.e. the dentist allowed the breach to occur by failing in their obligations to protect your information. If the data controller did all they could in securing this information but a breach happened anyway a claim is less likely.

What Damages Could Be Awarded For Medical Data Breach Claims?

The case Vidal-Hall and others v Google Inc, heard in the Court of Appeal in 2015, set the precedent for claiming non-material damages when there had been no financial impact.

A dentist data breach could result in you suffering mental harm. Caused by the stress of personal medical information being exposed.

A data breach might also result in significant monetary loss. For example, a cybercriminal might make purchases using your cards or your bank balance. In some cases, you may be able to claim these losses back. This is known as material damages compensation.

Additionally, there may be other costs incurred due to the data breach. As an example, you might have had to take time away from work to handle the impact of the data breach. If you didn’t get paid in full for this time off, you may be able to claim for this loss.

Dentist Data Breach Compensation Calculator

We cannot provide you with a sensible average amount of compensation you might get for a dentist data breach. But we can give you examples of different ranges of compensation for different mental health problems. We used guidelines produced by the Judicial College, updated in 2022, to make this table. These same guidelines are used by the court system to value claims.

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Mental Harm	Level of Severity	More Info	Compensation
Diagnosed With An Anxiety Disorder	Severe	A person suffering from severe PTSD will find that their life is affected significantly. Both work life and home life would be compromised.	£59,860 to £100,670
Diagnosed With An Anxiety Disorder	Moderately Severe	The sufferer of moderately severe PTSD will find that all aspects of life will be severely impacted however with the right help there may be some recovery.	£23,150 to £59,860
Diagnosed With An Anxiety Disorder	Moderate	The victim of moderate PTSD will suffer significantly but a near full recovery is possible,	£8,180 to £23,150
Diagnosed With An Anxiety Disorder	Less Severe	A person with less severe PTSD might take up to two years to recover.	£3,950 to £8,180

Mental Injury	Severe	Severe psychological damage that causes problems with work, relationships and home life. A recovery may not be possible.	£54,830 to £115,730
Mental Injury	Moderately Severe	A victim of moderately severe psychological damage may find their home life and working ability negatively impacted.	£19,070 to £54,830
Mental Injury	Moderate	The victim may have had initial psychological injuries, but they are likely to recover fully.	£5,860 to £19,070
Mental Injury	Less Severe	The level of severity of the psychological injuries and how long the victim suffered will affect the compensation payment.	£1,540 to £5,860

Start A Dentist Data Breach Claim Today

A No Win No Fee solicitor might be able to help you by processing data breach claims on your behalf. This would mean you don’t pay the lawyer a retainer or upfront fee to start working on your claim. And if the claim fails, the lawyer will not expect to receive a fee at all. When the claim is won, you will have to pay your lawyer a small, legally limited success fee.

Do you have more questions about making a data breach compensation claim for a dentist data breach? Then contact us for more help and advice using the information below.

Phone: 020 3870 4868

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UK Law – Dentist Data Breach Claims Guide