When a person is seeking to recover for a material loss, they need to prove that loss. For instance, a loss in income would generally require an accountant to prove that income was actually lost. If one was claiming they incurred expenses, a Court would look to see if this expense was reasonable, foreseeable and properly vouched. In the case of the HSE, it appears that a great number of people have suffered material loss. As a result of our call for information on the 17th May 2021 we received enquires from the following categories of people who suffered material loss:

  1. People who had appointments for treatments and scans which were cancelled
  2. Medical Professionals who suffered a drop in income as a result of HSE support services being offline.
  3. Individuals having to recreate medical records from GPs etc

There may be other categories of material loss arising also depending on how long the disruption lasts as a result of the HSE data breach. We cannot create an exhaustive list but further material losses might include:

  1. Affected prognoses due to treatments not administered in a timely manner, or at all,
  2. Identity theft
  3. Costs associated with the exfiltration event (dealing with “scammers” and so forth)
  4. Other losses incurred as a result of private information entering the public domain, e.g. Reputational Damage causing a job loss or lost business opportunity