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??

Yeah, OP, I think it's super weird that these colleagues are wasting their time and money looking this stuff up.

And even weirder that your ex manager saw fit to tell you that they had done this. That's truly fucked up.

But I also find it really weird that you saw for to lie to them in the first place.

The workplace sounds utterly toxic anyway and I'm sure it's a good thing that you're of there.

Strange one - she clearly has too much time on her hands…. What point was she trying to prove? Why does it matter?

That said, they are cheap enough so anyone can buy them?

One of the reasons I left was because they were making redundancies and they wanted me to fix interviews and scores which I refused to do, it’s a small company and the only person above the HR manager is the MD who is really good friends with the HR manager. I couldn’t complain to Hr as it’s all the girls in HR that done it.

The sitaution around the house is unusual which is why I said what I did in the first place, my husbands boss told us to choose a house and he would buy it for us as we aren’t in a position to buy ourselves so we rent off him with an agreement to have a percentage of the profit when he sells in 15 years, obviously my husband or his boss doesn’t want anyone to know at their company either. So no I’m not one to tell lots of lies. They just didn’t need to know the ins and ours. The mock agreement actually had no details on it ie address or landlords name. It could have actually been for work purposes as the company supply accommodation to staff so it could have been something I was working on work wise.

its just got to me that people would be so petty to make you feel bad

Your house is irrelevant, OP.

The thing about the redundancies is shocking. Is there anyone you could whistleblow to? You might also have a case for constructive dismissal if you feel you were forced out.

I'd reply back - thanks for letting me know you have committed a GDPR breach, I trust you will be reporting yourself to the ICO within 72 hours as required by law.

Just let them shit themselves a a bit.

But yeah, I wouldn't actually bother reporting them myself

Not at all, our landlord told us to put together the agreement. This had been on my PC for a few years. It had no information on regarding addresses names etc

They did, she knew the name of our landlord. Which she would have never been able to find out otherwise. I wouldn’t be asking for peoples opinions on a made up scenario

I think they’ve been extremely petty and quite weird and you should thank your lucky stars you managed to get out of there. Leave them to their silly behaviour and get on with your life - living well is the best revenge.

I find it strange you lied about buying the house. You didn’t need to tell them about the landlord, but I would be interested in the line of work and the motivations for an employer to buy a house (normal in some rural communities or in service) if I was doing any kind of vetting. Presumably if you work in HR you would have an awareness of potential fraud issues.

Well anyone can do a LR search, it's not a data breach for an individual to look at a public database. Hopefully in future you will think before lying about owning your home.

The rest shows that you are best off out of there

I wonder if the company is getting ammunition to demonstrate the OP is a habitual liar - ie so if she decides to disclose the shameful redundancy process, they can say that she lies about other things that are demonstrably false and she's lying about this. And that the HR. Anager is firing a warning shot in this regard. Just a thought...

I’d put in a SARS request anyway, give them some extra work to do and make sure they have to bring up all emails and texts on work devices that may include your name, employee number, etc.

@PeggyMitchellsCameo HR is the worst and I work in it. I feel sorry for so many people and will no longer work in the employee relations area as I can’t cope with some of capabilities or blatant cases of bullying within the workplace. Honestly everywhere seems to be like it.

As someone who deals with GDPR and deals with the ICO I don't think they will be interested in this in the slightest.
Your employer had your data (address) and used it to run a check on a public record, they did not disclose either your data or the public record to a third party (as far as we know).
Saying that, although I think the GDPR aspect is a red herring, its an odd thing to do accessing the land registry unless you are interested in the tenure for say the purposes of buying a property or complaining to a landlord etc.
You say you quit, you may have a case for constructive dismissal - personally I would just file under nutter and move on.
The land registry doesn't always give the full picture of ownership anyway, if a property is on trust, it will be registered in the trustees name even if they have no actual right to it.

Not sure where you're getting this from but even if she had it would still be none of their business.

I find it absolutely bonkers that you would have personal files on a works computer, no matter what it contained!

ALWAYS keep work and home separate if you are an employee.

What a really weird comment, especially as OP talks about both her & her husbands jobs so housing benefit wouldn’t even be an option. Why would you assume benefit fraud based on the post? Strange, really fucking strange. Oh hang on, are you one of OPs old colleagues?

Since it seems like they were excited to tell you they knew I’d be responding that I will be reporting it as a data breach/abuse of confidentiality and make them squirm.

@ThisJadeLeader Yes sorry I shouldn't have said that.

I'd make a complaint to the ICO on the basis that whilst deed info is public record, they used your personal information (home address) obtained in their work capacity to do the search. That is a breach as it is a misuse of information.

https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/