British law firms expect to handle a rush of privacy claims after the hacking of personal data from Ashley Madison and other dating websites, and they are already advising clients on divorce proceedings, reports say.
Britain's best-known relationship counselling service, Relate, has "started to take calls from worried individuals" who found their partners' details among data leaked by hackers known as the Impact Team, the Times said on Friday.
Law firm Mills and Reeve had already given advice to a married woman who discovered her husband was among about 1.2 million British users whose details were hacked, the newspaper quoted Nigel Shepherd, a partner in the firm, as saying.
Relate offers help with "feelings of shame, guilt, and anxiety" that users of the dating site may experience following the hacking, according to its website.
It also gives advice to partners of exposed Ashley Madison users on how to handle their "feelings of anger, rage and fear".
The hackers released a second batch of leaked data on Tuesday from Ashley Madison, whose motto is "Life is short, have an affair". The website run-by Toronto-based Avid Life Media claimed to be "the most famous name in infidelity and married dating" and boasted usage by "thousands of cheating wives and cheating husbands".
The Independent on Friday reported a growing "panic" in Britain as the impact of the hacking spread and said leaked user data from Avid Life Media's Down Low and other dating sites aimed at gay and bisexual men could "put gay lives at risk" in countries where homosexuality remains illegal.
Users of the Down Low site, which targets "married men seeking other men for casual, no-strings fun", are among the 37 million hacked accounts.
The newspaper quoted an unverified Reddit user claiming to be a gay man who is trying to flee Saudi Arabia because he "could be stoned to death" if his identity is exposed via the Ashley Madison leaks.
British civil servants, international bankers and UN staff are among the account holders whose details were published online, it said.
Around 100 users' email addresses end in the British government suffix gov.uk, according to lists posted online.
Most of these appear to be from local government domains and some are clearly false addresses linked to non-existent sites such as hotmail.gov.uk and labour.gov.uk.
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