Does the British Airways data breach fine mean compensation for victims?

The provisional £183m British Airways data breach fine means that the airline is set to be severely punished for the 2018 cyber-attacks that took place.

Fines can be levied at up to 4% of a company’s global annual turnover, and in the BA case, the fine is understood to equate to 1.5% of their 2017 turnover.

The financial penalties that can be issued under GDPR are far higher than what they used to be under its predecessor, the Data Protection Act. But what about compensation for the hundreds of thousands of victims whose information was compromised?

British Airways data breach fine is not for compensation

The British Airways data breach fine issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is not designed to go to the victims. The money from the penalty will normally go to the treasury as it’s designed to be a punishment and a deterrent.

When it comes to claims for damages, we have our separate group action which you can sign-up for here.

There’s also the option of an appeal to the fine which we touch upon below.

Will the fine help the case?

The penalty issued can help the legal case on the whole. It shows that the ICO are holding BA to account, and the level of the fine shows how seriously they’re treating the matter.

For that reason, the British Airways data breach fine can in a way support the separate group action for compensation. If BA’s lawyers to try and defend the case against them, we could use the findings from the ICO to help support the cases.

When and how to sign-up to join the compensation action

Although the current £183m British Airways data breach fine can still be appealed by the airline, the level of the fine demonstrates that there will be a significant financial penalty even if an appeal is successful. Even a reduced fine could still easily be over £100m.

News of the fine has triggered a fresh spike of new claims we have taken on, but they join a group that we have been acting for since news of the scandal broke last year.

Although there’s still time at present to sign-up and join the action, we’re urging people to do so without delay. It may be that BA’s lawyers want to put a quick deadline in place for people to join a formal Group Litigation Order (GLO) which could then freeze out anyone who hasn’t joined it.

With this in mind, we suggest you make use of our No Win, No Fee representation as soon as you possibly can.

You can check your eligibility to sign-up to the action here.