To ask my employer for compensation for accidentally leaking my pay details?

[salviapurplerain]

Posting here for traffic. I'm part of a group of people being made redundant at the end of this month. As part of the process, every individual in this group has been emailed a financial illustration of what the package will look like. It's a 1 like excel spreadsheet with detailed personal information including gross annual pay and a full breakdown of the exit package.

We have just found out that on one person's spreadsheet, along with that person's financial information, HR accidentally shared all the information for 6 other people! I am one of those people whose information was shared and I'm so upset! This is a breach of confidentiality and data protection surely!

Will I be unreasonable to claim compensation for this?

@ClareBlue

Wonder why you were chosen for redundancy

puzzling

@KatieGGGG

As PP have said, a lot of misinformation here.

You are entitled to compensation for breach under s168 of the Data Protection Act 2018 inc Article 82 GDPR.

The “loss” in this specific instance differs from usual, and need only be “distress” due to the breach.

Google DPA breach GLO and you’ll see how many are ongoing as a result of relatively minimal breaches. It is in volume where breaches become cost-effective.

ICO can’t enforce compensation to you, only fines on the organisation.

OP the crux of the matter is whether the potential award for distress (likely hundreds) is worth your own time and effort.

There is no harm in submitting your position to your employer and seeing what they say to it.

Are there any GLOs that relate to this sort of breach? AFAIK, those involving the DPA either involve alleged mass breaches of financial/credit card data, or other factors like conspiracy.

Hardly the same league as a single individual within the same organisation as the OP being told her salary.

[quote EL8888]@Casmama it’s the grabby and supercilious tone of the poster putting people’s backs up. Well, it was for me[/quote]
Which bit did you consider arrogant? I said I was upset and wondered if it was unreasonable to take action. What's wrong with that question?

Somebody else is probably already losing their job over this now its been bought up
You haven't really suffered huge distress so can't see you getting anything
Just report to ico and see what they advise

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow GLOs make it cost effective for claims management companies to takeover - and aren’t settled pre-lit - your rights don’t change due to volume of claimants, purely the “trouble” is taken out your hands.

Halliday v creation consumer finance for example provided £750 for breach of the earlier 1998 DPA.

@PyongyangKipperbang

You might not get anything, but given that they are making you redundant, give it a try!

I got "let go" yesterday, not been there long enough to be made redundant (a company wide decision to target those who have been there 2 years and under so they can avoid consultation and severance....MARSTONS PLC if anyone is interested), so for those of us with no recourse or appeal, go for it.

I'm sorry to hear this. I hope you manage to find something else soon

@salviapurplerain

Thanks, and right back atcha

So 7 people who are leaving anyway saw everyone elses redundancy figures? How the fuck that is distressing I have no idea.

It shouldn't surprise. There are a lot of people who look for ways to make a buck this way.

In the real (ethical) world, you'd start with a formal complaint to say this is not ok and then follow processes. If not happy, take it further so you know it won't happen again. Not rubbing your hands together in glee imagining how big your payout can actually get

Jesus. I'm sorry to be unhelpful but this is some of the kind of shit that makes me wish I didn't have kids growing up in this litigious world. My honest opinion is I think you're being ridiculous and cannot understand how 'distressed" this could really have caused you to be, that you would need financial compensation. You're leaving the company. Who cares who knows what you earned. Seriously? Why is that distressing you?????
Hopefully you'll get a written apology to dampen your distress quickly
major eye roll

Oh my lord. Salary data isnt always private anyway! Bet you twenty quid the person who saw already knew what you were on anyway. There are loads of ways this info gets leaked - a gossipy HR person, a secretary who types up a job offer letter, a payroll person who leaves something on a printer by mistake. Plus if you do the same job title as someone else & have similar experience etc you are likely paid the same, so if that other person had been talkative in the pub everyone would have a good idea of your pay anyway

In an evening at the pub I once accurately guessed my all my colleagues salaries, I was correct to within £1k, off a mixture of educated guessing, gossip, having seen inadvertently shared documents etc. Any one who works in finance for example can see in an accounts ledger how much a payroll bill for a particular team rises by in a month when a new person starts, & thus calculate back to work out what that person is being paid.

@CJsGoldfish

So 7 people who are leaving anyway saw everyone elses redundancy figures? How the fuck that is distressing I have no idea.

It shouldn't surprise. There are a lot of people who look for ways to make a buck this way.

In the real (ethical) world, you'd start with a formal complaint to say this is not ok and then follow processes. If not happy, take it further so you know it won't happen again. Not rubbing your hands together in glee imagining how big your payout can actually get

Do me a favour!

Lots of us are getting bog all, why the hell shouldnt someone who can increase their personal finances do so, when their livelihood has been taken away?

Most of the ones who are suffering most are not employed by small businesses, but by big corporations who are shedding jobs (and passing on those peoples work to their former colleagues) in order to keep profits and dividends up.

Do you really believe that the CEO of my former company has taken a pay/bonus cut? OR that that shareholders will happily accept a lower divi? If you do then that is naive beyond belief.

I don't understand why you would be upset at having your salary revealed to people who presumably you will never see again?

What is hurtful about people knowing how much you get paid?

Easy to say "its morally wrong" when you know your job is safe and you can pay your fucking mortgage next month.

I cant.

Distressing you say. I think you mean you are mighty pissed off. I don’t think there is compo for that. I’d be rich if there was

[quote KatieGGGG]@MissLucyEyelesbarrow GLOs make it cost effective for claims management companies to takeover - and aren’t settled pre-lit - your rights don’t change due to volume of claimants, purely the “trouble” is taken out your hands.

Halliday v creation consumer finance for example provided £750 for breach of the earlier 1998 DPA.[/quote]
I understand that; I just don't see the relevance to the OP.

Halliday involved multiple breaches to a third party organisation over a period of months, and he still got under a grand.

I doubt it’s a data breach that anyone would be interested in. Salary isn’t confidential. It’s not like it was sent to your customers. It stayed within the company. Simple human error.

Lots of us are getting bog all, why the hell shouldnt someone who can increase their personal finances do so, when their livelihood has been taken away?

big corporations who are shedding jobs (and passing on those peoples work to their former colleagues) in order to keep profits and dividends up.

I am genuinely sorry that you have been made redundant, but you surely don’t really think that any means of ‘increasing your personal finances’ is justifiable?

I can’t see what damage the OP has suffered, and the chances of future damages seem remote. For her to pursue a campaign against her soon to be former employer via a complaint to the ICO, in the hope of screwing a few bob out of them for spurious emotional distress, is most likely to lead to the colleague who made a genuine mistake getting a good kicking.

You say that you work for Marstons plc. Like most businesses in the leisure and hospitality sector, I can’t see there being many bumper dividends or bonuses for the board for the next few years. I can see exactly why such a business would choose to make people with shorter service redundant. It might be the difference between surviving the next year and not. That’s not much consolation to you, I realise, but it’s not personal on the part of your employer. Good luck with your next job.

has the information shown up a discrepancy in pay between soon to be ex-colleagues? so maybe more annoyed to find Betty was on 5k more and now everyone knows.

At most will get an apology

Sorry about being made redundant OP

In terms of compensation, I’m afraid I don’t think you have a chance. GDPR does allow for compensation for emotional harm, but there are a number of cases why your situation is simply not that serious, and won’t be taken as a significant issue:

-financial data rather than health/political OR other “sensitive” data under GDPR (I.e. the data disclosed is not considered to be the highest level of private)
-very limited data breach- a small number of people’s data, to only one person. Cases do sometimes become major because the breach is large scale rather than particularly serious—e.g. leak of data of thousands of employees, leak to wider public—this is an extremely limited breach
-not a systemic issue: one off issue as a result of human error, unlikely to repeat. Would not ride to level of disciplining person, they would take note, and tell them to be careful. That’s about it in most companies
-you haven’t complained to them yet
-no real evidence of emotional harm? “Oh I felt sad/shocked for 5 mins” is not something that gets compensation—there is a fairly high bar to show this had a big effect on you. I don’t think there is any real argument that one person in your company seeing this caused significant distress. Again, it’s not actually “sensitive” data that was leaked. So for e.g. if a company was to leak that an employee had answered “gay” on a private form to the general public and he was not out, you could argue emotional harm. Or if intimate details of your disability were shared with a group of clients by accident.

These things happen. My ex team leader accidently left a colleagues appraisal record sheet in the photocopier which I found ( I didn't read it ). It is not good and I would expect an apology and reassurances that it wont happen again.

Agree with 12309845653ghydrvj. And, if the OP wants to work in the same geographical or professional area in the future, she'd be very unwise to piss off her current employers with a claim. People talk. Your written reference may be fine but you can't control what people say to each other in private.

YANBU to be upset

YABU to ask for compo

@salviapurplerain sorry you’re being made redundant. Give it a go, I can’t believe the monumental fuck up of releasing everyone’s pay/redundancy in an email. It shows complete incompetence. Was there a follow email after it ie; please ignore email title ‘blah, blah’ it was sent by mistake and no malice was intended.
You could probably figure out if your male counterparts were getting paid more 🤔

OP just move on and put your efforts into finding another job. You get one life, just live it instead of complaining. There really are much bigger injustices in the world.

Sorry about your redundancy, but YABU to want compensation. Just move on. No harm has been done.