A federal judge dismissed all but one of the claims financial institutions brought against Heartland Payment Systems for the breach of Heartland’s computer systems that affected approximately 130 million consumers, demonstrating that it may be difficult to hold companies legally responsible for breaches of their data. The financial institution plaintiffs balked at Heartland’s settlement offers and instead sought relief from the court, but only the alleged violation of Florida’s consumer-protection statute survived Heartland’s motion to dismiss, an outcome which may deter future plaintiffs affected by data breaches from rejecting settlement offers to litigate their claims.
Tag Archives: Data Security & Breaches
Possible Health Information Trend in State Data Protection Statutes
With the compliance date for the federal health data breach notifications in the HITECH Act looming, more states are amending their data breach notification statutes to cover health information. The possible trend is evident in the newly-enacted laws of three states – Missouri, New Hampshire and Texas – all of which have been enacted since June 2009. […]