By now, everyone has heard or read or about the unfortunate cyberhack involving the movie “The Interview.” Starring one of Hollywood’s favorite comedic duos, James Franco and Seth Rogen, the movie turned out to be anything but a laughing matter. Weeks before the movie was set to be released, Sony Pictures, the company releasing it, was victimized by a massive cyberhack. Although cyberbreaches are not new, what is different about this case is that information about former and current employees was targeted in the hack. Names, addresses, Social Security numbers, employment records, including compensation records, human resources records, medical information and financial information for former and current Sony employees were allegedly made public. Investigations quickly revealed that North Korean hackers were behind the leak and it was a vengeful cyberattack. Past and present employees victimized by the attack quickly filed class actions against the studio alleging various claims, including negligence, violations of California’s data security laws, and constitutional invasion of privacy, among others.
Data breach class actions are nothing new and, sadly, due to their proliferation, their ability to catch the attention of anyone following the news may be waning. But what is unique about this case is that the plaintiff class is made up of employees. Target, Home Depot and other retailers have been subjected to high-profile class action litigation resulting from data breaches; however, in those cases consumer information was compromised. Sony faces litigation resulting from the theft of employee information. The differences are notable and present a slew of issues for employers to consider.
Difficult Nature of Data Breach Class Actions
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