Who’d be liable for a data breach?

QI’m a member of a local University of the Third Age group (U3A, www.u3a.org. uk). It is asking us to upload our personal details to a centralised cloudbased computer system it has set up. I’m concerned about the safety of the data, and also whether anyone in the group would be legally liable should there be a data breach. What’s the legal situation? James Watson

Some cases can close leaving us happy, but rather frustrated. A good example of this is Computeractive reader Mark Ingram’s complaint against Lenovo, which we reported in Issue 502. After a Lenovo tablet he bought from Argos stopped working, he sent it back to the company for repair under warranty. Lenovo told him that he would need to pay for the repair, even though the warranty still had 11 months to run.

We asked Lenovo why it told Mark this, but we didn’t get an answer. The company may have been under the impression that Mark had caused the damage, which would have invalidated his warranty. Or perhaps the fault simply wasn’t covered by the warranty. It wouldn’t have taken much effort to tell Mark one way or the other, but it had stopped replying to his emails.

It’s annoying when we don’t get clarification from a company in the wrong, but at least it has now fixed Mark’s tablet for free, and extended his warranty. We’d like to think our pressure made a difference.

Mark may have avoided this hassle by returning the tablet to Argos (the retailer in this transaction) rather than Lenovo (the manufacturer). Retailers offer more legal protection than manufacturers do under warranty.

By going to Lenovo first, Mark may face another problem in future. If the tablet stops working again, Argos will be entitled to try to fix it, before considering a replacement or refund.