Tag Archives: identify theft

Recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Case Starts a Wave of Lawsuits Against Retailers for Collecting Customer ZIP Codes

            In a recent decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) determined that customer ZIP Codes are “personal identification information” that retailers are prohibited from collecting during credit card transactions.  With this decision, the Massachusetts high court may have set off a wave of new class-action lawsuits against retailers that collected customer ZIP Codes.  Especially vulnerable are those retailers that collected customer ZIP Codes and used them to send unwanted marketing materials or sold the ZIP Codes or information derived from them to third parties. … More

Credit Card Replacement Costs and Identity Theft Insurance Are Compensable Damages for Data Breach

Late last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that victims of a data breach could pursue compensation from the merchant whose systems were breached for their costs of credit card replacement and identify theft insurance, under theories of breach of implied contract and negligence. See Anderson v. Hannaford Brothers Co., — F.3d —, 2011 WL 5007175 (1st Cir. Oct. 20, 2011).

As alleged by the plaintiffs in their class-action complaint,… More