Sony Employee Lawsuits As Wake-Up Call For Companies

Employee lawsuits filed against Sony raise an ominous question for companies across the board, suggests Andrea Peterson in the Washington Post. How much responsibility do employers have for protecting personal information of their employees? The latest suit, a would-be class action filed by San Francisco-based Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein in the name of two former technical directors at Sony, alleges that the company was negligent in protecting employee personal information “for decades.” Evidence cited includes a years-old published interview in which the company’s IT director used what in hindsight are highly dubious cost-benefit assumptions to justify limiting what the company would spend to protect credit card security.