London (AFP)

The company EasyJet is the subject of a complaint in collective name in the United Kingdom which brings together for the moment 10.000 customers considering themselves injured by a cyber attack which recently affected the airline company, announced Wednesday the law firm PGMBM.

This is one of the most important group actions in the UK with regard to data protection, says in a PGMBM statement.

The lawsuit was filed in May with the London High Court and the law firm is now trying to convince as many clients as possible to join the lawsuit.

EasyJet must respond to the complaint by the end of July and thereafter the court will have to validate or dismiss the procedure.

The 10,000 people who have already joined the group action come from 50 countries, specifies PGMBM.

The firm refers to European data protection law and considers that injured customers have the right to compensation of 2,000 pounds each.

EasyJet had revealed in mid-May that it had been the victim at the start of the year of a "very sophisticated" cyber attack which allowed hackers to access the personal data of approximately 9 million customers.

Hackers obtained email addresses and travel details, and in very few cases credit card data.

"This is a massive data breach and a terrible failure that has had a major impact on EasyJet customers," said Tom Goodhead, partner at PGMBM.

"Customers should be able to believe that everything is done to protect their privacy. Unfortunately, it seems that this has not been the case here," he said.

In a statement sent to AFP, a spokesperson for the company confirms that it is aware of this complaint and believes that other firms are doing the same.

"It is not new and it is not because these cabinets put themselves forward that their arguments are solid," he said.

EasyJet insists that hackers did not have access to passports or personal addresses, and that there is no suggestion that the data that was obtained was used for illegitimate purposes.

This case is bad for the airline which is gradually resuming its flights after being hit hard by the health crisis.

EasyJet in particular decided to reduce its workforce by a third, with the loss of 4,500 jobs and had to appeal to the government for an emergency loan of 600 million pounds.

© 2020 AFP