Car crashes: Data obtained unlawfully
Two more men have been convicted of unlawful accessing and selling personal information to sell on as potential leads for injury claims.
The convictions of Christopher Munro, 37, of Knutsford, Cheshire, and William Chipoma, 35, of Enfield, London, follow those of eight men found guilty last June [1] of a conspiracy to unlawfully obtain data.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said the pair deliberately sought employment with the intention of stealing and selling personal data.
Mr Munro accessed thousands of records without legitimate authority or consent while working for two different companies during 2015 and 2016, receiving payments totalling £16,000.
The ICO said he made multiple employment applications to claims management and insurance companies but left after short periods when unable to access personal data.
He was charged with four offences: two under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and two under section 55 of the Data Protection Act 1998.
Mr Chipoma illegally accessed records and sold personal data between 2015 and 2017, receiving payments totalling £70,550. He was charged with the same offence.
Both men pleaded guilty to all offences. Mr Munro was handed a 32-week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, as well as being ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work.
Mr Chipoma received a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, and was ordered to complete 240 hours of unpaid work.
The ICO said that, in addition to the 10 convictions, its largest nuisance call investigation had also seen three people cautioned.
Investigators are looking to recoup the financial benefits obtained by all the offenders by utilising the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
The ICO’s investigation began in 2016, when it was contacted by the owner of a car repair garage in County Durham, who was worried his customers blamed him for the nuisance calls they were receiving about personal injury claims.
It snowballed into one of the largest nuisance call cases the ICO has ever handled; nine warrants in the Manchester and Macclesfield areas led to the seizure of devices containing 241,000 emails, 4.5m documents, 144,000 spreadsheets, 1.5m images and 83,000 multimedia files.