Part 7 · Civil compensation and the law
Tell AsbestosIQ where and when you were exposed
Mesothelioma takes 20 to 60 years to appear. By the time you’ve been diagnosed, the workplaces, the foremen and often the insurance companies have moved, merged, dissolved or simply forgotten what they used to do. The only person who reliably remembers where the dust came from is you. Or the person you cared for.
AsbestosIQ keeps a public-interest record of UK exposure locations. With your consent, your record joins it. The next claimant chasing the same employer in 2042 may rely on the entry you make today. That’s the point.
This chapter explains what the database is, what it isn’t, what we collect, what stays private, and how to revoke an entry. The submission form is linked at the foot of this chapter.
What it isn’t.Submitting to AsbestosIQ is not making a legal claim. It does not start a case. It is not a substitute for instructing a specialist asbestos solicitor — chapter 7.4 covers how to find one and what to ask before you sign. A submission is a record, not a verdict.
What we collect. For each place of exposure, we ask:
- The employer, school, hospital, ship, site or building.
- Your role there in plain English (lagger, joiner, school caretaker, plant manager).
- The years you were there. Rough years are fine. Leave them blank if you really don’t know.
- The town or area.
- Anything specific you remember about the asbestos — what it looked like, where it was, what was being done to it. This is optional.
You can add as many places as you remember. Most working lives included more than one.
What stays private. Your email is used only to verify the entry and to honour any later revocation. It is never published. You also choose how your name appears in the public record:
- Anonymous. Only the exposure detail is published. No name attached.
- First name only.‘Submitted by Margaret’. Your surname is never published.
- Named. Your full name appears alongside the entry. Reserve this for when you want to be contactable by other claimants or journalists.
You can revoke consent at any time by replying to the confirmation email. Published entries are removed from the public record within five working days; entries still in review are removed immediately.
Who uses the database. Other people diagnosed years from now and their solicitors, looking for proof their employer used asbestos at the address you describe. Coroners and inquest teams. Investigative journalists. Trade-union legal departments. Academic researchers. The Health and Safety Executive. Public, named, dated.
Worried about getting it wrong.A submission is your honest account, to the best of your memory. Reviewers may follow up by email if a date seems implausible or a name needs clarification. Nothing is treated as proof of anything; the database is a starting point that legal evidence (HMRC employment records, GDPR subject access requests, ELTO insurer lookups) builds on. Your civil claim, if you have one, doesn’t depend on what you submit here, and isn’t weakened by anything you write here.
Worried about your former employer.Defamation law in England and Wales does not protect a company from accurate, honestly-given accounts of past exposure. Every published entry is reviewed by an editor before it goes up. We won’t publish anything that risks defamation, and we’ll come back to you if a phrase needs editing.
Under UK GDPR. You can ask us at any time for a copy of your submission (a subject access request), correction of any error, or full removal. AsbestosIQ is the data controller. The privacy notice details the lawful basis (public-interest research) and the retention period.
Ready when you are. The form takes about five minutes and saves nothing until you tap submit on the final step. You can leave at any point.