Can I class this as a data breach?

[ItsClemFandangoCanYouHearMe]

So long story short my employer dismissed me when I raised concerns about how they were protecting staff (key workers) during the covid pandemic.

Since they furloughed me then dismissed me (as the company was apparently struggling yet kept new starters) I knew that is why, but I cannot prove it.

My DSAR has come back with plenty of written statements etc but some were from personal email addresses and were not redacted.

Is that a data breach?

I'll be perfectly honest, I am just trying to be difficult. I'm doing the DSAR and appeals because they way they did this is so wrong and I want to make a point and waste their time as I know nothing will come of it and I don't want my job back.

I doubt it's enough to go to the ISO though 🤷‍♀️ any thoughts?

The person who will have to deal with you being a ‘nuisance’ isn’t the target of your anger. You might consider what it is that you wish to achieve.

The person I'm dealing with made a false statement against me though. It's a very small company and she has been awful to me since she first informed me I was furloughed.

Who did she make a false statement about you to? To you?
No advice, but you have my sympathies. I was sacked from a job in 2017 by a crew of bitches, the likes of which I have never worked with before or since. It was traumatising.

Is there anything ELSE that you could do that would make you feel better?

I wished I could have resigned before they sacked me I hated them so much. But I left that too late.

Thank you @sawollya. She is friends with the owner of the company and management have all changes their statements to fit the narrative. It's just so frustrating! I know what happened and the statements I received and all fluffy versions of the truth.

I have a new job and I managed to get that 2 weeks after I was dismissed and I am enjoying it and I'm proud of myself. It's just the principle you know? It irks me beyond belief that they've gotten away with this with no repercussions.

You should raise a grievance as raising a health and safety concern is protected under the employment right act.
It could constitute automatic unfair dismissal. After you have raised a grievance initiate early conciliation. It’s free and the form is very simple. You could easily walk away with £10k.

In terms of ICO the waiting list is currently 3 months. Whilst complaints are being picked up companies as far as I am aware are not being approached by ICO. This situation might have changed.

I have a complaint outstanding - been in queue for 8 weeks now and my case has not been assigned. My former employer lost my personal medical date and then put it in writing.to me!

In terms of your furlough who did they put on it men/women/disabled ? Are the newbies at the same grade as you? How long have you been employed? Are you aware of there pay at all?

Do you have a copy of original statements and then the different fluffy statements?

You could easily walk away with £10k

Statements like this are really unhelpful. The op has a new job, there is no way they will get this.

@CoRhona

You could easily walk away with £10k

Statements like this are really unhelpful. The op has a new job, there is no way they will get this.

Quite. And besides which, the OP has already made it clear that she has absolutely no evidence to support this claim. There is no reason why newer staff should be dismissed, and in fact first in last out has been shown to be actionable under discrimination laws in some cases. So retaining newer staff means nothing.

The fact remains that you raised a health and safety issue and you are protected.
Whilst your future loses are nil they have not treated you very well.
You do not need to provide any evidence to do conciliation and if you want to rock the boat this is your best bet.
I got 10k for someone in similar situation and the guy that caused the problems got the chop!!!
If you do conciliation you don’t have to take it to tribunal.
Times are hard and your lucky you have a job but think about what if you were not lucky and you didn’t have a job!
Think of yourself and what you need to survive this crisis.
Conciliation only lasts one month and you will get a couple of calls from a conciliator. You simply explain what’s happened. They then go to your former employer and then offers are made.
As an example I did this for someone and it was wrapped up in 3 telephone calls.
It was easy, gave them a dent in their profits and the person got justice.

I'll put in before I respond to the rest that I don't want to walk away with money, that's not my MO at all. It's the fact that they got rid of me (2 days short of 2 years and an impeccable employment record so I had no rights) but they kept 2 men who were new starters. One had been there only 2 weeks and one at 6 weeks.

I was one of only 3 people who could work over multiple departments.

They did this because I had the audacity to speak up about the lack of PPE in general spaces, making people work on top of each other to push production through the roof as all they were concerned about was making money.

They lied on statements saying I was shouting and aggressive with is totally false. I was nervous about speaking and certainly didn't raise my voice.

All I want from this is to show them that they can't do that. If I have to draw it out over months i will. It's costing the company money to waste their time dealing with me and that's good enough for me.

**also just to respond to the earlier comment, I have a grievance coming up which I didn't want until after the DSAR came back as they fired me, a woman with 2 young children, and also another woman with 1 young child. We were the only people with children in the place.

But they've kept two new starters who are men and don't have children. It's like they were lining up to replace us.

@Rosie2020 that's awful!

I'll look into that, thank you. I just want to do this properly.

You are following procedure by raising a grievance. If you didn’t then it could work against you in the event you did want to proceed with a tribunal claim. Don’t be surprised if they don’t respond to your SAR. I suggest you do an equal pay questionnaire and an equal pay questionnaire. Are you okay doing this?

As your on your own and have children I think you need to think about the money as you need to survive and you have no protection from loosing your new job as you need to work there two years. Can you PM me if you need help and I can tell you what to put

Sorry I meant equality of terms questionnaire

I'm not alone luckily, I have my husband.

I'll give a breakdown of the timeline.

Furloughed in the first week of April

Made redundant at the very end of April

Started a redundancy appeal the same day, had my appeal over zoom (this went very poorly, the person conducting this meeting was very aggressive and dismissive)

Issued a DSAR about a week later

2 weeks for them to tell me I hadn't won my appeal

Received DSAR 3 days ago but there is only very basic things in there like the statements they collected from people, my performance reviews, an email chain where I asked for annual leave for 2 days so I could actually spend time with my kids as I was so overworked and my furlough letter and redundancy letter.

Sent an email last night advising that the statements were sent without redacted personal email addresses and that I need tome to review before I go ahead with the grievance.

They've given me nothing I can work with and I can't believe for a moment that there is not a single email trail discussing the reasons for my redundancy.

Did the SAR contents come from them or a solicitor ?
I would email and ask again for outstanding information and say if no response in 7 days then your sending a complaint to the ICO.
I would not wait to lodge a complaint if the one month period has passed. You will need to outline the ground of your complaint to the ICO and you will need to upload a copy of your SAR, there response and your email back asking for outstanding information. You should also include anything with peoples personal data on it etc etc and highlight the information in a colour to make it obvious to them it’s personal.

The complaint should be based on failure to respond with all the information to SAR and giving out personal information.
You will then be allocated a reference number. You won’t hear anything back for a good 12 weeks and at that point the case will be allocated to someone at ICO

If you haven’t already you also need to raise a data breach with the data controller.
The register for data controllers is available online. They will then need to report the breach if it falls within certain guidelines.
You should also include a copy of this email in your ico complaint

@Rosie2020 you've been so helpful thanks so much. I'm reading during breaks in work but I'm going to sit down tonight and digest everything you've mentioned. ⭐️

The wording of your posts do come across as very aggressive so perhaps you don't realise how you come across sometimes.

Also you mention your performance review was included. If this was not good then it may be used in their selection for redundancy process.

As you state yourself as you are there less than 2 years your only recourse is a discrimination claim which from what you say I can't see there is any particular evidence of. Yes 2 women have been selected and 2 men not but that does not automatically make it discriminatory.

Personally as you have a new job I would move on and not give it the headspace as it is clearly riling you.

@SeasonFinale - you are not correct. A claim could be bought for automatic unfair dismissal and gender protected charectoristic discrimination.

Evidence is obtainable through the SAR, equality of terms questionnaire and equal pay questionnaire.

Who’s personal email addresses were provided?

Other employees? When dealing with DSARs it’s not unusual to seek the consent of employees who’s data you are going to disclose because of the effort redaction involves.

If you think there are emails that discuss your redundancy you can go back to the Data Controller and request them. They May or may not exist. Most companies will ensure sensitive conversations like that take place on ephemeral messaging services or verbally. Or they permanently delete them as soon as someone has left so as to avoid an anti sips yes DSAR.

avoid an anti sips yes DSAR. = so as to avoid any potential DSAR

If you went through the employment tribunal route you could obtain a court order for computer systems and back up systems to be searched for specific key terms and then undertake trace on it to check up on them!
Everything is recoverable as every document saved opened and logged and downloaded is traceable.
HR don’t have a clue about the legal remit. They will make mistakes you just need to find them.

Everything is recoverable as every document saved opened and logged and downloaded is traceable

You can’t possibly know that. Many systems, especially those implemented or revised post GDPR, have deliberately short retention periods without long term back up where anything that you are not legally obligated to retain are deleted after a short time frame. E.g. at my company the retention period for emails is 60 days. Once it is gone it’s gone. Not recoverable.

@SeasonFinale I don't intend to come across as aggressive, I'm frustrated.

My performance review was excellent, told I was a real asset. Hence the working different departments, they wanted to train me up.

I've never said boo to a goose within that company and the one time I said something I'm suddenly gone. I didn't raise my voice, I was thoughtful in what I said and even wrote down what I wanted to say and didn't deviate from it.

The only reason I can believe the dismissed me was because I told them that they were putting us at risk, or that I have children and they don't want to deal with that even though I can count on one hand the amount of instances I've ever had time off because of them.

The personal email addresses were used from colleagues who still work there and the person I approached who no longer works there.