Mealey's Data Privacy : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Data Privacy

March 24, 2023
Parties To Libby, Mont., Asbestos Case Call Government Testimony Critical

MISSOULA, Mont. — Agents of the United States are the only ones capable of answering questions critical to a False Claims Act (FCA) case involving asbestos-related Medicare claims created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), parties to the suit told a federal judge in Montana, urging him to affirm a decision that the government must produce witnesses and to ignore a motion for reconsideration.
March 23, 2023
Adult Son Substituted As Plaintiff In Fingerprint Class Suit After Death

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — A deceased plaintiff’s adult son “is a proper representative to prosecute” his claims under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), a federal judge in Illinois ruled March 22, finding that the claim survives the plaintiff’s death.
March 23, 2023
Google Must Give Expert Confidential Documents In Location-Tracking Suit

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A group of plaintiffs suing Google LLC for privacy violations related to the purported surreptitious gathering of their location information data prevailed in a discovery matter, with a California federal magistrate judge ordering the technology giant to turn over a collection of confidential documents to the plaintiffs’ expert witness.
March 22, 2023
Discovery Stayed In Uber Drivers’ Biometric Privacy Suit Against Microsoft

CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge granted a motion by Microsoft Corp. to stay discovery proceedings until the resolution of its motion to compel arbitration in a putative class action under Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) brought by former drivers with Uber Technologies Inc. related to a facial recognition app, with the judge finding that there would be little harm to the drivers and predicting that the arbitration motion would be resolved quickly.
March 21, 2023
Job Applicant May Sue Firm For Damages, Not Injunction After Data Breach

MADISON, Wis. — Mostly granting a trucking firm’s motion to dismiss a putative class action over a 2021 data breach, a Wisconsin federal judge found that a job applicant had standing to bring a negligence claim based on his mitigation efforts to stave off potential identity theft while disposing of the rest of the claims for lack of standing to sue for injunctive relief.
March 13, 2023
United States Seeks Reconsideration Of Libby, Mont., Asbestos Deposition Ruling

MISSOULA, Mont. — The United States has asked for leave to file a motion for reconsideration, telling a federal judge in Montana that having two agencies appear for deposition in a dispute over fraud claims stemming from asbestos-related Medicare claims related to Libby, Mont., would require marshalling numerous individuals from several different agencies and asking them to duplicate already performed work without any likelihood of producing relevant evidence.
March 13, 2023
Meta Seeks Relation Of Another Case In Growing Pixel Health Data Gathering Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — In a March 10 motion, Meta Platforms Inc. asks a California federal court to relate an 11th case with 10 already related cases in which patients of various hospitals and medical facilities have brought suit against the Facebook operator for purportedly installing its Pixel tool on the health care facilities’ respective online patient portals, thereby allowing it to surreptitiously collect patients’ protected health information (PHI).
March 08, 2023
Duty To Preserve Argued In Google Chrome Data Collection Suits

SAN JOSE, Calif. — In a joint submission, Google LLC and a group of plaintiffs alleging privacy violations in Google’s Chrome web browser tell a California federal court their divergent views on whether the defendant was obligated to preserve and submit mapping and linking tables about which the parties dispute the relevance to the litigation.
March 07, 2023
9th Circuit: National Security Bars Twitter’s Surveillance Transparency Report

SEATTLE — More than a year and a half after hearing oral arguments in a dispute over whether Twitter Inc.’s free speech rights were violated when the Federal Bureau of Investigation forbade it from releasing an unredacted report on its compliance with government surveillance activities, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel majority on March 6 affirmed a trial court’s finding that the narrowly tailored redactions were appropriate in light of the government’s compelling national security interest.
March 06, 2023
Meta Opposes New Mexico’s Intervention In Profile Sharing MDL Settlement

SAN FRANCISCO — New Mexico is not entitled to participate in the preliminary approval hearing for the proposed $725 million settlement of the multidistrict litigation regarding the 2015 Facebook user profile-sharing incident, Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook Inc.) argues in a brief in California federal court opposing the state’s motion to intervene, contending that any “preclusive effect” the settlement might have upon a parallel suit should be addressed by the New Mexico state court where it is pending.
February 28, 2023
Supreme Court Hears Arguments About Federal Identity Theft Statute

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In oral arguments Feb. 28, the U.S. Supreme Court justices raised questions and concerns about vagueness, due process and interpretation as they examined the federal aggravated identity theft statute in the context of a psychologist convicted of health care fraud, with some of the justices opining that the statute broadly encompasses actions that would not typically be considered identity theft.
February 24, 2023
Amici Warn Of Fallout From SEC’s Subpoena Of Privileged Materials From Covington

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Responding to a District of Columbia federal judge’s order to show cause, four amicus curiae briefs were submitted condemning the Securities and Exchange Commission for its subpoena seeking client lists from law firm Covington & Burling LLP and warning of harmful consequences to the attorney-client privilege.
February 23, 2023
‘Devastating Consequences’ If Study Subject Identities Are Released, Briefs Warn

NEW YORK — Expert Jacqueline Moline, her employer and an asbestos plaintiff tell a federal judge in New York in Feb. 22 letter briefs that experts on both sides agree that study participants retain an expectation of privacy even if their information becomes available through other means and warn of the “devastating consequences” should the court deviate from that bedrock principle and require disclosure of their identities.
February 23, 2023
Illinois High Court: Each Unauthorized Fingerprint Scan Violates BIPA

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A majority in the Illinois Supreme Court concluded that per the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), each employee fingerprint scan White Castle System Inc. obtained constituted a separate act of collection and a potential basis for BIPA violation claims.
February 23, 2023
Supreme Court Won’t Decide If Internet Subscriber Info Search Requires Warrant

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man convicted of child pornography possession failed in his bid to overturn the judgment against him and suppress the evidence against him when the U.S. Supreme Court denied his petition for certiorari asking whether internet subscriber information is protected from warrantless searches under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
February 22, 2023
Magistrate Won’t Dismiss Claims That Patreon Violated Users’ Video-Viewing Privacy

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal magistrate judge denied Patreon Inc.’s motion to dismiss putative class claims that it illegally shared its users’ video-viewing data with social media company Meta Platforms Inc. in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) but dismissed the plaintiffs’ claim for violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) under the fraudulent prong.
February 22, 2023
Cruise Lines, Florida Agree To Dismiss Appeal Of Florida Vaccine Documentation Ban

ATLANTA — In an appeal before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in which the state of Florida challenged a federal court’s ruling enjoining the state surgeon general from enforcing a statutory ban on businesses requiring customers to provide documentation of COVID-19 vaccination, the state and the group of cruise lines that originally sued to block the statutory ban filed a joint stipulation of dismissal two months after a split 11th Circuit panel denied the cruise lines’ motion to dismiss the appeal as moot.
February 22, 2023
Wikimedia Denied Certiorari Over State Secrets Privilege In NSA Surveillance Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Wikimedia Foundation’s challenge to the dismissal of its lawsuit over the National Security Agency’s upstream surveillance program came to an end on Feb. 21, when the U.S. Supreme Court denied Wikimedia’s petition for certiorari, declining to consider whether a trial court properly invoked the state secrets privilege in disposing of the case.
February 17, 2023
In Revised Approval Motion, Facebook Users Defend $37.5 Million Privacy Agreement

SAN FRANCISCO — Two months after a California federal judge declined to approve a proposed $37.5 million settlement of a privacy suit over purported location tracking by Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook Inc.), the plaintiffs submitted a renewed preliminary approval motion, defending the settlement fund amount as “substantial” and providing “meaningful relief” to the proposed class of Facebook users.
February 15, 2023
Tester’s Class Suit Accusing Hot Topic Of Sharing Chats Tossed By Federal Judge

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A “tester” who brought a class complaint accusing a retailer of violating California privacy laws by sharing online chats between the retailer and website visitors with at least one third party failed to establish subject matter jurisdiction or show that the retailer was itself or was aiding “a third-party eavesdropper within the meaning” of one of the laws and that the second law was applicable, a federal judge in California ruled Feb. 14.
February 14, 2023
Judge Denies Personal Data Website’s Motion To Strike Putative UCL Class Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge denied a personal data aggregation website’s motion filed pursuant to the state’s anti-Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) law to strike or dismiss a woman’s putative class action against it for violations of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other statutes, finding that the woman’s claims do not revolve around protected speech.
February 10, 2023
Magistrate Permits Search Of Cell Tower Records For Sex-Trafficking Investigation

CHICAGO — The U.S. Department of Justice was granted an application for a warrant to search cell tower data as part of its investigation of several violent crimes in Chicago that included sex trafficking, with an Illinois federal magistrate judge finding that proposed protocols within the warrant sufficiently safeguard third-party privacy interests for uninvolved individuals whose data might be included in the search results.
February 09, 2023
Only Unredacted Portions Of Administrative Record In Disability Suit Will Be Sealed

PORTLAND, Maine — A Maine federal judge determined that the interest of the public outweighs a disability insurer’s burden of redacting personally identifiable information from the administrative record and said that only the unredacted portions of the administrative record will be sealed.
February 07, 2023
FTC, GoodRx Agree To $1.5 Million Settlement For Privacy Violations

OAKLAND, Calif. — The Federal Trade Commission and an online prescription and medical services provider have agreed to settle the commission’s claims of deceptive acts and misappropriation of private health information (PHI), filing in California federal court a joint motion for entry of a proposed stipulation under which the defendant will pay a $1.5 million penalty, enact a comprehensive privacy program and comply with various privacy assurance and certification procedures.
February 03, 2023
IHeartMedia Sued For Sharing Site Users’ Video Viewing Information With Facebook

TAMPA, Fla. — A putative class complaint filed in Florida federal court alleges that iHeartMedia Inc. (IHM) shares the personal viewing information (PVI) of users of its website with Facebook in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA).