Class Actions Filed After Largest Breach Of Personally Identifiable Information

In writing for Biometric Update, Anthony Kimery reports that four class action lawsuits have been filed in response to the largest breach of personally identifiable information (PII) ever. Almost 3 billion records containing the PII of US, Canadian, and British citizens were stolen from National Public Data, a Florida data broker. The information allegedly includes Social Security numbers and criminal records.

National Public Data is a trade name of Jerico Pictures, Inc., a film and television production company with offices in Los Angeles and Coral Gables, Florida.

Its website says it“obtains information from various public record databases, court records, state and national databases, and other repositories nationwide.” Its customers include private investigators and staffing agencies.

The breach wasn’t revealed until the first proposed class action was filed on August 1 in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. According to Biometric Update, at least three other proposed class action lawsuits were filed in the same court.

The suits allege that National Public Data “failed to properly secure and safeguard the PII that it collected and maintained as part of [its] regular business practices.”

One of the class actions says that the compromised personally identifiable information has already been used “in identity theft and fraud” and can be used to commit a variety of crimes, including opening new financial accounts in class members’ names, taking out loans in class members’ names, and using class members’ information to obtain government benefits.

Another allegation is that every class member has “been exposed to a heightened and imminent risk of fraud and identity theft” and “must now and in the future closely monitor their financial accounts to guard against identity theft.”

The suits also claim that the data broker never notified the affected individuals or disclosed whether it opened an investigation into the hack.