USS data breach - information for colleagues

USS has been contacting any of its members affected by a recent data breach, after confirming that some members’ personal information was accessed by hackers.

The pension scheme, which many of our colleagues are members of, has reported that data belonging to 470,000 active, deferred and retired members, was among that accessed during a recent attack on a Capita server.

The information included:

• names
• dates of birth
• national insurance numbers
• USS member numbers
• retirement dates.

No contact details, such as addresses, phone numbers or email addresses, were accessed.

USS is continuing to work with Capita to investigate the breach.

What to do

Any members affected by the data breach will be contacted by USS directly by email, or letter if they have not provided a valid email.

All members are to be contacted by USS with an offer of support with their data security via an Experian log-in. USS expects to have issued all these emails and letters by 31 May.

USS has urged members to remain vigilant against scam phone calls and emails as information such as that accessed is sometimes used to make scam emails and phone calls appear genuine.

USS has made clear that members will not be contacted by telephone about this matter unless they ask to be, so any phone calls should be treated with suspicion.

More information and a Q&A has been published on the USS website.

Members should email mydata@uss.co.uk if they have any further queries not covered on the website.