Supermarket chain, Morrisons face paying out compensation claims to more than 5,000 of their staff after the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s ruling in regard to Morrisons being liable for the data leak conducted by their former employee, Andrew Skelton.

The supermarket chain is now involved in the UK’s first data leak group action, due to Mr Skelton’s actions in 2014, in which the former senior internal auditor leaked payroll data whilst working at Morrison’s head office in Bradford.

The claimants are a mixture of both former and current employee, who allege that the data breach enabled them vulnerable to the possibility of identity theft and financial losses. This has been ruled as Morrison’s responsibility, and they are therefore in breach of data protection, privacy and confidence laws.

According to the British security company, SureCloud, there have been an influx of Wi-Fi routers hacked in millions of homes across the UK.

SureClouder researcher Elliott Thomson, who discovered the reported Wi-Fi hacks, stated:

“The hacker would be able join the Wi-Fi network, access shared files, access ‘internet of things’ devices which trust the local network”

He also reported that a hacker could access web browsing history:

Before Brexit is finalised, there is a lot of work to be done, with one of the most recent priorities being data transference between the UK and the EU. This is because both the Government and businesses have expressed their reservations regarding personal data traffic post-Brexit, especially in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit. 

In order to combat this issue, a new Data Law Committee has been implemented in order to discuss future legislation regarding Data Protection and Privacy law. The City of London Law Society announced the introduction of the Data Law Committee, with Jon Bartley, the chairman of the committee describing it as “pivotal moment” for Privacy law.

The Committee is in place in order to discuss all aspects of Data Privacy and Cybersecurity legislation. However, Jon Bartley, the Committee Chairman and Partner at the Corporate and Insurance law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, announced that Brexit is “our first and most urgent area of interest.”.

In a recent security report, which analysed 850 cyber-crimes against UK universities and colleges from 2017 to 2018, there was clear evidence to show that the cyber-attacks were often committed by disgruntled students or staff members within these organisations.

The report was conducted by the government-funded agency, Jisc,who discovered that the crimes were not being committed by professional hackers or organized crime groups, but instead the perpetrators were much closer to home.  This conclusion was made due to the attacks showing “clear patterns” of activity during term times, whilst attacks were reduced during holiday periods.

Dr John Chapman, the head of security operations at Jisc, who assists with providing technology services to the higher and further education field, stated: