DWP data breach

OAB · 14 September 2018 at 12:00AM

Last week I received a letter that had been fowarded to me from a welfare centre that is over 100 miles away from I live.

The letter contained two attachments, a letter quoting "We are contacting you on behalf of XXX as we believe you represent him, please find attached a letter we recently sent him". The other letter was a copy of a recent PIP decision.

I am sure you know where this is going, but the PIP award letter includes some very personal and sensitive data. Information such as name, address, NINO, disabilities, health issues, financial issues and much more.

I am absolutely furious and upset about this and it's causing me such huge concern. I literally have no idea if this has been going on for a long time, or why this would happen. I know that mistakes happen, and assumed maybe there is someone with same name in that area? But my name is very unique & I doubt it. Lost for words for how this happened.

I've already complained to DWP and contacted my MP. But not sure what to expect going foward?

Ames · 14 September 2018 at 12:10AM

OAB wrote: »

Last week I received a letter that had been fowarded to me from a welfare centre that is over 100 miles away from I live.

The letter contained two attachments, a letter quoting "We are contacting you on behalf of XXX as we believe you represent him, please find attached a letter we recently sent him". The other letter was a copy of a recent PIP decision.

I am sure you know where this is going, but the PIP award letter includes some very personal and sensitive data. Information such as name, address, NINO, disabilities, health issues, financial issues and much more.

I am absolutely furious and upset about this and it's causing me such huge concern. I literally have no idea if this has been going on for a long time, or why this would happen. I know that mistakes happen, and assumed maybe there is someone with same name in that area? But my name is very unique & I doubt it. Lost for words for how this happened.

I've already complained to DWP and contacted my MP. But not sure what to expect going foward?

Can I just clarify- have you received someone else's details? Or is it your details that were originally sent somewhere else?

OAB · 14 September 2018 at 12:14AM

Ames wrote: »

Can I just clarify- have you received someone else's details? Or is it your details that were originally sent somewhere else?

Hi - It was my details that was sent elsewhere.

TELLIT01 · 14 September 2018 at 8:09AM

DWP do take situations like this extremely seriously. It may take some time to determine exactly what happened and why.

Afraid_of_Kittens · 14 September 2018 at 8:55AM

Have you ever used this welfare centre? Have you ever signed anything to say that they can act on your behalf?

pmduk · 14 September 2018 at 11:01AM

Indeed, have you ever asked for a representative to handle your affairs? Perhaps a CAB or such like?

TELLIT01 · 14 September 2018 at 11:17AM

How did the welfare centre know where to forward to? And, as already asked, have you or the person to whom the letter refers had dealings with them in the past. Most likely scenario would seem to be a change of address not getting to the right place for one reason or another.

As I said earlier, sending items to the wrong address is taken extremely seriously. I was accused of doing it but thankfully had screen printed the information from the system. It turned out a change of address was notified later on the day I sent the letter out. Without that screen print I'd have had no way of proving I'd sent it to the address on system at the time.

OAB · 14 September 2018 at 4:42PM

Afraid_of_Kittens wrote: »

Have you ever used this welfare centre? Have you ever signed anything to say that they can act on your behalf?

Hi - I have not. I represent myself when applying for PIP.

pmduk wrote: »

Indeed, have you ever asked for a representative to handle your affairs? Perhaps a CAB or such like?

Hey - Again, nope. When I contact the CAB this weekend or at the start of the week, it will be the first time I have requested help from an external company regarding DWP.

TELLIT01 wrote: »

How did the welfare centre know where to forward to? And, as already asked, have you or the person to whom the letter refers had dealings with them in the past. Most likely scenario would seem to be a change of address not getting to the right place for one reason or another.

As I said earlier, sending items to the wrong address is taken extremely seriously. I was accused of doing it but thankfully had screen printed the information from the system. It turned out a change of address was notified later on the day I sent the letter out. Without that screen print I'd have had no way of proving I'd sent it to the address on system at the time.

Hi there.

In the letter they sent, was a letter from the DWP saying that the said welfare centre represent me, and also a copy of a decision letter for PIP. Both of these letters had my name and address on. I haven't had any dealing with any welfare centre now or in the past, and most definitely not one that is 100 miles away from me.

I am not sure what you mean by change of address, I haven't changed address for over 7 years and the welfare centre is just not even anywhere near me for them to get it wrong.

On a side note, I contacted them by phone at first to try and understand what had happened. The lady on the phone was as confused about it as I was and she said she would foward it to the relevant department urgently. I have obviously written in too and received a phone call yesterday just to say they had received it and are investigating.

I know I've already stated, but I am really disappointed about it. I just don't know how this could have happened and the PIP decision letter has a whole host of information about me, that is completely private.

Literally stuck in how to approach it.

TELLIT01 · 14 September 2018 at 6:54PM

Thanks for the additional info AOB. It certainly is a strange one as you've had no dealings with the welfare centre. The initial method of access to systems is normally the National Insurance number which should be unique. It's looking likely that somehow the NI number has been linked to the wrong individual but only time will tell the full story, if they decide to share that information.

I_am_mum · 26 October 2018 at 7:34PM

This happened to me, I was sent another patients personal sensitive data. I wrote a letter of complaint, sent by recorded post, and sent the information back and I asked for a full explanation. They wrote back and apologised and are paying some compensation which they are paying into my account.

p00hsticks · 26 October 2018 at 8:17PM

I_am_mum wrote: »

This happened to me, I was sent another patients personal sensitive data. I wrote a letter of complaint, sent by recorded post, and sent the information back and I asked for a full explanation. They wrote back and apologised and are paying some compensation which they are paying into my account.

Surely the compensation should be being paid to the person who's details you got rather than you ? Unless your details were in turn sent to someone else I don't really see how you've been inconvenienced other than by writing to let them know (well done for that, by the way)

DWP data breach

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