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As a litigator, when responding to any security incident, thoughtful consideration is given to the possibility that the security incident may wind up in litigation, and therefore, certain decisions are made in anticipation of that litigation. Without getting into the details of the legal doctrines of attorney-client privileges, work product doctrine, and in anticipation of…

Experian’s Data Breach Resolution group has released its Data Breach Industry Forecast 2019 Report, which provides predictions for data breaches in 2019, and outlines staggering statistics of data breaches that occurred in 2018.

One statistic is that the “number of records compromised in the first half of the year had already surpassed the total number…

Federal legislation recently took effect that prohibits consumer reporting agencies from charging a fee to place or remove (lift) a security freeze on a consumer credit report in response to a consumer request. The “Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act” (the Act) was passed on May 24, 2018. The Act includes important updates to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) that may in turn affect the information that businesses provide to customers or clients in response to a data breach or similar security incident.
Continue Reading Federal Legislation Enables Consumers to Obtain Security Freezes on Credit Reports Free of Charge

A new Harris Poll for the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), which called 1,006 U.S. adults for the report, shows interesting statistics regarding American adults’ attitudes and fears about identity theft and financial loss as a result of cyber intrusions. The poll’s conclusion is that 48 percent of U.S. adults believe that identity theft will…

On May 11, 2017, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a $12 million judgment against Experian Information Solutions, Inc. (“Experian”) in a class action against the credit reporting bureau alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”). Relying on the standard set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, the circuit court held the named plaintiff lacked constitutional standing because he suffered no “concrete” injury from the alleged statutory violation.

The claims in the lawsuit involved the FCRA requirement that credit reporting agencies must, upon request, clearly and accurately disclose to a consumer the “sources of the information” in the consumer’s file at the time of the request. 15 U.S.C. § 1681g(a)(2). As part of a background check in connection with obtaining security clearance, the lead plaintiff, Michael Dreher, obtained a series of credit reports from Experian which listed a delinquent credit card account identified as Advanta associated with his name. Unbeknownst to Dreher, Advanta has been closed since 2010 and a company named CardWorks had been appointed as a servicer for the company  acquiring Advanta’s receivables.
Continue Reading Fourth Circuit Vacates $12M FCRA Class Action Judgment Against Experian

On March 1, 2016, the Internal Revenue Service alerted the business community of an e-mail phishing scheme designed to convince employees to provide company-wide W-2 tax forms containing social security numbers and other personally identifiable information [view related post].  While the scam has taken different forms, the most prevalent approach is a purported internal…