British Airways had a data breach that allowed unauthorized third-party/parties access to passenger names, passport, and credit card information. BA has arrogantly continued to claim that there is no proof leaked credit cards would have been used in an unauthorized manner.
The British Information Commissioner’s Office and is the process of fining British Airways to the tune of £183 million and has already found that more than half a million passengers were affected.
You can access the SPG Law’s website here.
There was a hearing in the UK court earlier this month that two law firms representing more than 5,000 claimants attended. The judge granted a 15-month window for people to file their claims.
Not sure if this 15-month window is calculated from the hearing date or when this breach was first discovered. In either way, affected British Airways passengers can still register and become part of the class.
The court chose SPG Law to be the lead solicitor in this case because they had the highest number of claimants.
Here’s the information that SPG Law sent out yesterday to those who had signed up:
Here are our previous pieces about this issue:
British Airways Website And App Hacked & 380K Customer’s Credit Card And Other Information Stolen
UPDATE: British Airways Data Breach Affects Those That Made Award Bookings April 21 – July 28, 2018
Stolen Credit Card Data From British Airways Hack On Sale For $12 Million
Reader Question: British Airways Data Theft & Card Compromised?
Reader Question: $21K In Fraudulent Charges Due To British Airways Hack & HSBC Refuses To Dispute?
British Airways Is Facing a Record Breaking £183 Million Fine Over 2018 Data Breach
Conclusion
The five thousand or so claimants that have signed up by now only represent only 15% of the potential class. I hope that more British Airways passengers exercise their rights and become part of the lawsuit.
The requirement to include PNRs (passenger name records), last four digits of the credit card, and addresses used is burdensome. The issue I have with this is that a single passenger could have used multiple cards and addresses like myself. I have already cut in half the credit cards that have been breached, and I have four billing addresses in use.
Let’s hope that something significant will come out of this litigation.
Dead against GLO – if BA were instead forced to pay for Government imposed security checks (or, even better, investigations and corrections by industry recognised specialists) instead of people trying to get some money and leading to increased charges for other passengers, I might be more behind it.
It’s like the EU legislation for flight delays… £200 quid back because your flight that cost £39 was late getting you somewhere is extortionate and disproportionate.
Don’t get me started on amenity fees, resort taxes and congestion charges…
The level of compensation is established to pay for the inconvenience the passenger has suffered and hopefully to make aircraft maintenance something not to be skimped by airlines. Too bad EU261/2004 does not extend to N. America.
I can’t see how making an airline give passengers 5 times what they paid for their flight as compensation will stop shoddy maintenance, when the maintenance itself has to reach stringent safety levels anyway.
If anything, it encourages airlines to avoid punitive measures by implementing the sort of (negative) gate practices used by some US airlines now (Delta, I think?).
I’m afraid I have to disagree – if it truly was meant to compensate for inconvenience, shouldn’t there be a sliding scale depending on the length of the delay, without reference to distance?
The idea behind stiff penalties is to make sure the airline loses money for poor maintenance. If you have to pay multiple times what you made by selling the ticket for delaying passengers due to poor maintenance, that should get the point across. And well, if they were meeting those stringent safety levels then it shouldn’t be happening often enough to cause a dent in the budget.