Mealey's Data Privacy : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Data Privacy

May 10, 2024
After Cert Denial, Lindell Drops 4th Amendment Suit Over FBI Phone Seizure

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider questions about the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and injunctive relief raised by Michael J. Lindell in connection with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s seizure of his cell phone, the MyPillow Inc. Chief Executive Officer’s motion on remand to dismiss the lawsuit was granted by a Minnesota federal judge.
May 03, 2024
Judge Denies Letter Rogatory To Name ‘Civil Society’ Members Targeted By Spyware

OAKLAND, Calif. — A spyware maker’s attempt to demonstrate that its surveillance software targeted terrorists and criminals, rather than members of “civil society,” can be made without obtaining discovery from a research lab, a California federal judge ruled May 2, denying the defendant’s motion to issue a letter rogatory on the nonparty Canadian entity while seeking to defend itself from computer fraud claims brought by WhatsApp Inc.
May 03, 2024
COVID-19 Contact Tracing Staffing Company Will Pay $2.7M To Settle Privacy Claims

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A company hired by the Pennsylvania Department of Health to provide staffing for COVID-19 contact tracing will pay $2.7 million to settle claims pending in a federal court in Pennsylvania that it failed to implement sufficient cybersecurity measures to protect collected data, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced.
May 01, 2024
Individual Settlement Reached In Papa John’s Website Data Collection Class Suit

SAN DIEGO — A consumer who filed a putative class complaint accusing Papa John’s International Inc. of violating the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) through the interception and collection of users’ data on a pizza-ordering webpage filed a notice in a federal court in California stating that he reached an individual settlement.
April 30, 2024
Judge Gives Initial Nod To $9.4M White Castle Finger Scan Class Action Settlement

CHICAGO — A $9.4 million settlement between White Castle System Inc. and an employee who sued the fast food company for its finger scan policy received preliminary approval from an Illinois federal judge, who deemed the estimated $968 per class member payment to be “substantial relief” for the purported violations of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by their employer.
April 29, 2024
High Court Won’t Decide ‘Average’ Class Damages Issue In Chili’s Data Breach Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A question about the propriety of using an “average” damages amount suggested by the plaintiffs’ damages expert to certify a class will go unheard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which in its April 29 order list denied a petition for certiorari by the owner of the Chili’s restaurant chain, which protested the possibility that customers who suffered no damages at all in a 2018 data breach would still receive these damages awards.
April 25, 2024
FTC: Ring Customers Will Be Paid $5.6 Million For Improperly Viewed Videos

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In conjunction with a stipulated order issued in June 2023 by a District of Columbia federal court, the Federal Trade Commission announced in a press release that a $5.6 million judgment will be disbursed to customers of Ring LLC whose home security videos were viewed by the company’s employees and contractors without authorization.
April 24, 2024
Parties In WhatsApp Spyware Suit Argue Whether Letter Rogatory Is Appropriate

OAKLAND, Calif. — WhatsApp Inc., NSO Group Technologies Limited and a nonparty research lab filed briefs in California federal court disputing whether discovery NSO seeks to obtain from the lab via a letter rogatory is relevant, appropriate or necessary to the computer fraud claims at the heart of the lawsuit over the defendant’s spyware.
April 23, 2024
3rd Circuit Hears Arguments In 2 Cases Over Jurisdiction For Wiretapping Software

PITTSBURGH — Considering questions of personal jurisdiction and pleadings standards, the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals heard combined oral arguments in two putative class actions that were dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, in which Pennsylvania residents alleged violations of a state surveillance statute by Papa John’s International Inc. and a software company, respectively, based on wiretapping computer code that was surreptitiously placed on the devices of website visitors.
April 22, 2024
Federal Judge Stays Class Action Alleging Insurer Illegally Wiretaps Website Users

PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania federal judge granted an insurer’s motion to stay a putative class action alleging that it illegally wiretaps website users by using third-party session replay software to track and record their navigation, exercising “its considerable discretion to stay these proceedings pending guidance from the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals regarding standing” in what the insurer calls a “strikingly similar” lawsuit.
April 22, 2024
Judge: Disclosure Of Driver’s License Info Did Not Violate New Hampshire Privacy Law

CONCORD, N.H. — Granting a motion to dismiss by Bath & Body Works LLC (BBW), a New Hampshire federal judge found that the retailer’s transmission of a customer’s driver’s license information to a third-party business partner did not violate the New Hampshire Driver Privacy Act (DPA) because the plaintiff did not establish that a “department record” had been sold or offered for sale.
April 19, 2024
Final OK Given To $62 Million Cy Pres Settlement Of Google Location History Suit

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The same day he presided over a fairness hearing, a California federal judge issued a minute entry on the court docket on April 18 granting final approval to a $62 million settlement of a consolidated class action over the purported collection and retention of users’ location data by Google Inc., with most of the funds going to cy pres recipients.
April 16, 2024
Law Firm Agrees To $8M Class Settlement After Data Breach

SAN FRANCISCO — Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP has agreed to pay $8 million to end consolidated class litigation filed after the firm’s network was breached and the personal identifiable information (PII) of more than 630,000 individuals was potentially accessed, according to a motion for preliminary settlement approval filed in a federal court in California.
April 15, 2024
High Court Won’t Take Up MyPillow CEO’s 4th Amendment Question Over Phone Seizure

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its April 15 order list, the U.S. Supreme Court denied without comment a petition for certiorari in which MyPillow Inc. Chief Executive Officer Michael J. Lindell asked it to find that a warrant used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to seize his iPhone and all the data on it violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because it did not state with particularity the data to be seized.
April 12, 2024
On Remand, Judge Deems $3.2M Costs, Fees Award In Wawa Data Breach Suit Reasonable

PHILADELPHIA — After scrutinizing the factors and negotiations that resulted in a $3.2 million award of attorney fees, costs and service awards that accompanied the $9 million settlement of a consumer class action over a 2019 data breach experienced by Wawa Inc., a Pennsylvania federal judge found the award to be reasonable in light of relevant case law and similar data breach suits and despite arguments against the award risk by an objector.
April 12, 2024
23andMe Data Breach Suits Centralized In Northern California MDL

SAN FRANCISCO — The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) on April 11 granted a request by genetic testing company 23andMe to consolidate 39 pending lawsuits against it in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, all of which relate to a data breach in which ancestral records for roughly 6.9 million customers were hacked and allegedly sold online.
April 10, 2024
Amici Support Facebook Before High Court, Say Split Over Disclosure Must End

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Multiple groups filed a total of three amicus curiae briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the court should grant a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the company formerly known as Facebook Inc., echoing the social media giant’s argument that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals deepened a circuit split over what public companies must disclose when it partly revived a putative class complaint brought by investors.
April 10, 2024
9th Circuit Denies Objectors Rehearing Over $90 Million Facebook Tracking MDL

SAN FRANCISCO — In a pair of almost identical one-page orders, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied petitions for rehearing by objectors to the $90 million settlement of a 12-year-old privacy multidistrict litigation over internet tracking activities of social network users by Facebook Inc. (now known as Meta Platforms Inc.), which received final approval in November.
April 08, 2024
Judge Seals Portions Of Flint Experts’ Opinions, Guarding Minors’ Personal Data

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A federal judge in Michigan on April 5 issued an order granting a motion to seal certain portions of the opinions of plaintiffs’ experts in the litigation over the water crisis in Flint, Mich., ruling that some aspects of their opinions include medical and personal information of minor children.
April 08, 2024
Insurer Moves To Reargue Dismissal Of Breach Of Contract Claims In Subrogation Suit

WILMINGTON, Del. — An insurer asked a Delaware court if it can reargue the court’s dismissal of its breach of contract claims for pleading deficiencies and file an amended complaint before dismissal with prejudice is entered on the breach of contract claims in its subrogation lawsuit seeking recovery from an application service provider for the amount paid to nonprofit insureds for investigative and remediation steps arising from a ransomware attack.
April 04, 2024
D.C. Circuit Partly Vacates FCC Order Banning Chinese Firms’ Surveillance Products

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Although a District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that the Federal Communications Commission was within its authority to ban the video surveillance equipment of two Chinese-owned companies for certain uses in the United States, the panel partly vacated the FCC order enforcing the ban, finding the commission’s definition of “critical infrastructure” in the order to be “overly broad.”
April 03, 2024
Google, Privacy Plaintiffs Propose Injunctive Relief To Settle Data-Tracking Suit

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Leapfrogging over the typical procedure of seeking preliminary approval of a proposed class action settlement over Google LLC’s purported tracking of users’ internet browsing activity and data, the named plaintiffs filed a motion in California federal court seeking final approval of a “groundbreaking” agreement under which the technology giant pledges to make changes to its data collection and retention practices, among other things.
April 03, 2024
Judge Preliminarily Approves $350M Settlement In Securities Suit Against Google

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted preliminary approval to a $350 million settlement of a putative class complaint filed by investors in Google LLC and its parent company Alphabet Inc. who claimed that the companies issued false statements about the safety of the now defunct Google+ social media platform.
April 03, 2024
Class BIPA Case Over Truck Driver Monitoring Products Survives Dismissal Motion

CHICAGO — A putative class complaint alleging that a technology company that supplies truck driver monitoring products, including a camera device that uses artificial intelligence to track driver behavior, violates the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by collecting data may proceed as the company in its motion to dismiss failed to show a lack of personal jurisdiction or that the facial-geometry scans are not “biometric identifiers” under BIPA, a federal judge in Illinois ruled.
April 03, 2024
Chili’s Customers: Class Damages Methodology Review Not Needed In Data Breach Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court does not need to review a question presented by a restaurant chain owner in a data breach case concerning the damages methodology used by the certified classes’ expert as the underlying decision doesn’t present the question Brinker International Inc. seeks to resolve, restaurant customers argue in their respondent brief.