14/06/2017

A former manager at a claims management company has been fined £2,000 for leading a team who made so-called ‘blagging calls’ to insurance companies in order to unlawfully obtain personal information about policy holders and the road traffic accidents they had been involved in.

The manager, Joseph Walker, and his co-defendants Lesley Severs and Kayleigh Billington, worked at Liverpool-based UK Claims Organisation Limited.

Using data originally gained unlawfully from a car hire firm, they pretended – among other guises – to be calling from solicitors firms in order to ‘blag’ the insurers into releasing personal data that could be sold on to solicitors as personal injury claims.

‘Joseph Walker: Enforcement Notice’ explains how, following prosecution from the Information Commissioner’s Office, Walker was found guilty at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court of 12 offences under section 55 of the Data Protection Act 1998, with 44 similar matters taken into consideration. In addition to the fine, he was ordered to pay £1,600 prosecution costs and a £15 victim surcharge. Severs and Billington were sentenced last year (‘Lesley Severs and Kayleigh Billington: Enforcement Notice’).