GDPR Breach?

TheMiscGuy596

Hi!

Unsure if I am posting in the right place. It not I do apologise. I am after some advice if I can if possible please on a situation which is entirely my fault.

So in 2024 I worked for let's say RANDOM public sector organisation. I was one of 4 staff who dealt with misdemeanors for about 75,000 people. Whilst working for RANDOM I was in a Cafe and discussed a case in this cafe. The reason I said what I said was I was put on the "bad" cases and it felt extremely overwhelming and I was told that I should just get on with it etc and do what I can (which is difficult) and I thought sometimes it's best to be generic but just let something out especially if colleagues don't get it.

I didn't go into details. I have changed some facts here but the gist of the details was I said that someone got sacked (didn't say timescale) for GBH. Now this didn't make it to the news and the person wasn't convicted nor does anyone in the office know about this except for the HR staff who would have disciplined the person. I didn't give out a name address or anything that someone could realistically use to look this up online, but appreciate the information should not have been disclosed and this was an absolute mess up. About 15 people were in the cafe at the time. None whom work in my organisation. 

So now this year I am in a new role same RANDOM organisation doing something else. I just worry that something could still come up about this where I shouldn't have mentioned as they know where I work.

Obviously I appreciate the gravity of my enormous screw up and nothing can understate that. My concern is GDPR and Data wise, what have I breached? Is it worth contacting my local Union who I'm with to get their input or no as there's no investigation and I'm preparing for nothing? Should I immediately report this as a non intentional PDB (personal data breach) to get resolved ASAP?

I am hoping for any advice you can give but anything at all is much appreciated.

Thank you.

elsien

As far as I can tell, no one has raised it. No one seems to have noticed. You have realised your mistake and won’t be doing it again.
For whatever reason, you seem to be hugely overthinking this. Is there anything else going on that  could have  triggered your anxiety? 

TheMiscGuy596

elsien said:

As far as I can tell, no one has raised it. No one seems to have noticed. You have realised your mistake and won’t be doing it again.
For whatever reason, you seem to be hugely overthinking this. Is there anything else going on that  could have  triggered your anxiety? 

Thank you firstly, the comment is genuinely helpful and reassuring. I think I am just concerned over the fact that someone from the cafe applied for a job with us and came in for an interview with us, so I just thought they were going to put two and two together if it was mentioned by them.

I agree though I seem to be overthinking it a lot. Thank you for picking that up.

elsien

They probably haven’t given it a second thought. if I overheard something in public, that I was worried about I would raise it at the time. Not 12 months later. 
Stop worrying. Deal with it if it ever does get raised. Which it won’t because there was nothing identifiable said at all. 

TheMiscGuy596

elsien said:

They probably haven’t given it a second thought. if I overheard something in public, that I was worried about I would raise it at the time. Not 12 months later. 
Stop worrying. Deal with it if it ever does get raised. Which it won’t because there was nothing identifiable said at all. 

Thank you - I was just worried that the 'identifiable' info could be identifiable internally or a professional issue but as you clearly say it's not been raised and most likely won't be. 

Grumpy_chap

Assuming of course that the individual the OP may have been speaking about is not in, and does not come into, the public eye.  
If it was a politician or such like, anyone with the information will hold it until either it causes maximum damage or there is a slow news day to fill the column inches with.

TheMiscGuy596

Grumpy_chap said:

Assuming of course that the individual the OP may have been speaking about is not in, and does not come into, the public eye.  
If it was a politician or such like, anyone with the information will hold it until either it causes maximum damage or there is a slow news day to fill the column inches with.

Yes - not in the public eye nor nothing found online - and out of this local community (I deal with National issues) that local 'chatter' wouldn't pinpoint it to a person. I appreciate completely that yes it was a major error which I definitely don't plan to repeat though.

Brie

What you can see is identifiable information may seem completely random to someone else.  I will admit that the only conversation I can remember about a similar situation when I was in a restaurant was when 2 women started talking loudly about a case that was in the paper and it happened be be about a relative of mine.  They couldn't have known I was related and anyone else likely wouldn't have paid any attention.  

Main thing is this happened a year ago - very few people have the sort of memory that might allow them to see you and think of the conversation.  I'm amazed at the number of times I've remembered someone from a year or 2 earlier and if I say hello they look at me completely blankly as I'm a complete stranger to them. 

Don't worry about it.  

TheMiscGuy596

Brie said:

What you can see is identifiable information may seem completely random to someone else.  I will admit that the only conversation I can remember about a similar situation when I was in a restaurant was when 2 women started talking loudly about a case that was in the paper and it happened be be about a relative of mine.  They couldn't have known I was related and anyone else likely wouldn't have paid any attention.  

Main thing is this happened a year ago - very few people have the sort of memory that might allow them to see you and think of the conversation.  I'm amazed at the number of times I've remembered someone from a year or 2 earlier and if I say hello they look at me completely blankly as I'm a complete stranger to them. 

Don't worry about it.  

Thank you - that's also reassuring - I just worry as I see some people in there kinda frequently - but we discuss a lot of random stuff so you are right over a year ago (even months ago even if late 2024) you'd barely remember unless this was the only thing you knew + surely you'd need to 'want' to report it (which again I feel they would've already done).

MyRealNameToo

For it to be a breach of GDPR it would have to have included something that can identify a living individual. There have been court cases on what exactly this means, and ask a dozen lawyers and you'll get at least 2 dozen possible interpretations however from what you say there was nothing said that a normal person could use to identify the actual person. As such it doesnt sound a breach of GDPR.

Whilst not a breach of GDPR it probably wasnt an appropriate environment for the conversation but you are far from alone on that front. Number of times on the train or in a cafe you can see someone's laptop screen or overhear their conversations is worrying and certainly more than once have seen things that were highly inappropriate to be in the public domain. 

A certain amount of regret isnt a bad thing, if it's used to learn a lesson about where and when to share details, but you should constantly beat yourself up or live in fear of it. Its ultimately happened, you've hopefully learned from it and no actual harm was caused on this occasion.