Dixons Carphone

Dixons Carphone, also known as Currys, is a retail company headquartered in the United Kingdom. It operates physical stores under the Currys PC World and Dixons Travel brand names, which constitute its primary customer-facing operations. The organization serves consumers through these retail locations, with its corporate base in the UK. Its business model is centered on in-person sales through these branded outlets.

The company is notably associated with a major data breach disclosed in July 2017. This incident compromised approximately 5.9 million payment cards and 1.2 million personal records containing names, addresses, and email addresses. The unauthorized access targeted processing systems supporting its Currys PC World and Dixons Travel stores. Among the compromised payment cards, 105,000 were non-chip-and-pin cards from non-European issuers, though no fraud or data misuse was subsequently detected. The breach drew regulatory scrutiny due to its scale and the firm's history of prior data security failures. It occurred before the enforcement of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, which later introduced stricter data protection penalties. The chief executive officer publicly acknowledged deficiencies in the company's data protection practices and expressed regret. Following an internal investigation aided by external cybersecurity experts, the company notified all affected individuals and implemented enhanced security measures. Dixons Carphone also collaborated with UK authorities to assess the potential impacts of the security incident.