Colleagues used my details to find the deeds on my house. Data breech

[ThisJadeLeader]

I recently quit my job, toxic work place I had worked there for 7 plus years. It didn’t go down very well with my manager or rest of team.
I worked in a small HR team so we had access to everyone’s details.
i stupidly left some private information in a private file on my desktop which has been accessed by IT and my old boss.
The document was a mock tenancy agreement for my house.
When I moved into my house a few years ago I just said we had bought it as it was a new build and I couldn’t be bothered explaining someone had bought it on our behalf and we would be renting from him (non of their business)
Since then my old manager told me she knows I don’t own my house as the HR team done a search and the deeds weren’t in our name!!!
Isnt this a GDPR breach that they have accessed my address purely to do a private search which is nothing to do with work? I get the deeds are public records (which you have to pay for so I just find it so weird) but they would need to get my address from my HR file to perform the search in the first place??

Sounds like an absolutely awful workplace with awful bullies in it.

@tribpot makes a great suggestion as to what to say.

A GDPR breach is a bit of a long shot since the info is also in the public domain, and you’d have to go through the rigmarole of reporting to the ICO. But could be fun for a lark.

The more powerful use of this episode would be to evidence a toxic workplace and unbearable bullying to support a constructive dismissal claim.

What @SophiaCohle and @Grapesofmildirritation said. I am a Data Protection Practitioner.

I think its a bit rich of you to call them 'nosey bitchy' when you told a total lie which was completely uneccessary. You could have just said 'we are moving, yes, its a new house' but you chose to tell a lie which says something about you.
It sounds like maybe you are a bit of a habitual liar to just casually lie in that way and i wonder if there were quite s few other casual lies you told, which if obvious to colleagues would affect how they view you.

Its also not a data breach if they knew your address anyway - theres nothing to suggest they needed to look at your HR record.
This is the sort of thing curious people on here look up all the time, eg looking to see if their irritating neighbours are owners or renters.
There's also nothing to suggest they did it on work time or computers either, someone could easily have done it on their phone.
If OP was that colleague who told loads of wild lies that make people curious, i can easily see how this happened. Not saying it's right, but i can see how it could have come about

This is very odd.

There has been to data breach because they have only accessed personal information you saved on and then didn't delete from a work computer, which was your mistake from a data privacy point of view. And anyone can buy deeds to any property registered with the Land Registry. That's not private information. But none of this explains why they have such an interest in your living arrangements or why your former manager contacted you after your left to say she knows you don't own your house. It's none of their business whether you own your house or not. Bizarre, unprofessional behaviour.

You're better off out of there.

Does not matter if OP had said that her fairy godmother waved a wand and built a house for her.
The manager had no need to know the circumstances of the house purchase and no business looking it up. It was not a legitimate reason.

I had a colleague insist to me that I was renting and she knew who my landlord was, or else that my husband's name was X and not Y, and why did I lie about that? Because she'd tried to look up our house records but got my address wrong. Then she thought I should bring in proof of purchase- to satisfy her!

Toxic workplaces are self-fuelling cesspits. The gossips/snidey fuckers in particular all egg one other on and reinforce one another's stalker/weirdo fixations.

Easierstill, you may not realise it, but you give the impression you are one of those weirdo colleagues who are oddly fixated on others' lives and are a self-appointed moral monitor!

Are you sure they did a search? Maybe just seeing the tenancy agreement was enough for her to assume you didn’t own it? Obviously super weird of her to confront you about it though!

@ThisJadeLeader Sorry if I've misunderstood, but when you say "I just find it odd that a group of adult women would go to this length. I feel it’s a. Witch hunt. I use to be apart of it which is why I know the conversations that would have taken place.", does that mean you also used to be nasty to other staff members and try to dig up dirt on them? In which case you can't really find it odd, because you did it yourself. Karma and all that.

As to "I suppose moral of the story is don’t tell lies ", well there is that, but I think the moral of the story might be twofold, "Don't put private files on a work computer or at least delete them before you leave" and "What goes around comes around".

I’d want to go further with it just to show her that she can’t be a bully. Can’t imagine why she’d look it up after you’ve moved on, and why she felt the need to let you know she’s done it.

It doesn't matter whether it's public information or not. This behaviour is absolutely batshit. Is your former manager 12?

You're reaching. I made some good friends at the school gates when I first moved here.

If you haven't experienced a toxic workplace, consider yourself very lucky.

You lied you owned a house and they knew you didn't (whatever the reason).

Just don't lie. If you were so ashamed could you not have bought one?

The good news is that you are out of that environment. You gave the correct contact details while you worked there so you've done nothing wrong - the specifics of ownership vs rental is none of their business. They can't do anything with this information except wind you up so my advice would be to ignore and try to move on.

If she saw the mock tenancy agreement why did she need to do a search?

I don't think it is a data breach as you chose to save the data on there. So that's your "breach" if anything.

But it does sound potentially like a conduct issue.

They certainly sound toxic and horrible