Violations

Practices and Patterns in Dismissed Federal Data Breach Cases and why the Dismissals Matter

De: Michael Wells Jr.

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

If the shenanigans with our Social Security numbers and data due to the DOGE activities do not concern you, nothing will.

Privacy matters to hundreds of millions of people in the United States, and it is central to freedom and individual and societal well-being. Because we live in the age of “big data” data breaches are a constant risk. A data breach is when data is stolen by a hacker from a computer system maintained by an entity such as an online retailer. At some point, virtually everyone will be the victim of a data breach; some may not know it until years later. Consequently, our personal data is at constant risk.

Data breaches threaten to expose the intimate details of our sex lives, our medical information, financial information, employment records, online searches, movies we watch, books we check out at the library, and places we shop. When it comes to protecting our personal data, American law lags compared to the rest of world, and legal remedies are limited.

Federal judges play a large role in perpetuating this lag, which threatens the privacy of all Americans. To maintain a case in federal court in the United States, a plaintiff must have “standing to sue.” In federal court, this means a plaintiff must have suffered harm that is “concrete” and “particularized,” causally linked to the injury complained of, and likely to result in a favorable outcome.

This is a high bar for injured plaintiffs. When it comes to data breach lawsuits, they are usually dismissed by federal judges for a lack of standing because the federal courts generally consider financial or physical harm to be the only harms that are considered “concrete” and sufficient injury to maintain a data breach case.

Consequently, most federal judges will dismiss cases where the harm asserted consists of stress, anxiety, worry, and time spent remedying the situation. Regardless of how probable future identity theft is, judges rarely consider evidence of future harm. This book examines federal data breach cases where judges dismissed the cases for a lack of standing and determines whether there are consistent patterns in these decisions.

Written by R. Michael Wells Jr, Esq., MLS a lawyer with 20 years’ litigation experience, who has worked in the world of data breach litigation. Michael received his BA from the University of Virginia, his Master of Science in Information and Library Science from UNC Chapel Hill, and his Juris Doctor from Wake Forest University School of Law.