The Georgia Supreme Court recently issued a decision holding that there is no duty to safeguard personal information from a data breach under Georgia law. Georgia Department of Labor v. McConnell involved the accidental disclosure of a spreadsheet that contained the name, social security number, home telephone number, email address, and age of thousands of […]
Class Action
Seventh Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Schnuck Markets Data Breach Lawsuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently affirmed the dismissal of a putative class action brought by financial institutions against Schnuck Markets, Inc., following a data breach impacting Schnuck beginning late 2012. The plaintiffs attempted to assert claims of negligence, negligence per se, various contract claims, and violation of Illinois consumer […]
Lenovo Wins Second Motion to Dismiss in Adware Class Action
By Jay Repko A California district court recently dismissed—for the second time—consumer claims that technology giant Lenovo Inc. violated New York’s Deceptive Acts and Practices Statute by selling laptops with preinstalled VisualDiscovery software that allegedly invades users’ privacy and exposes users to security breaches. In reaching this decision, Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. concluded that […]
ECJ Rules against Schrems Class Action, Sets Up Jurisdictional Questions for GDPR Class Actions
In late 2015, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued its initial Schrems decision, invalidating the EU/US Safe Harbor and leading to important developments in the rules for transferring personal data from the EU to the US. Since that decision, Mr. Schrems has pursued two further legal proceedings in the EU. The first involves Mr. Schrems’ challenge in […]
Data Protection Litigation to Become a New Reality in Belgium
On November 16, 2017 the Belgian Senate adopted an “Act on the Establishment of the Data Protection Authority” (the “Act”). Following Austria, Germany, and the UK, Belgium is the fourth EU Member State to pass a domestic statute implementing the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (“GDPR”) prior to its effective date of 25 May 2018. […]