Can You Sue a Company for a Data Breach?

If you suffered any type of losses from a data breach, you have the right to sue the company in question.

Being involved in a data breach can lead to a lot of emotional distress, financial losses, and even identity theft. It’s extremely important to figure out what you can do if any company you work with has leaked your data during a data breach. It’s a very good idea to narrow down your options, and also see whether the situation at hand is considered a data breach or not in the first place.

What is seen as a data breach?

Before you involve any data breach lawyers, you want to see what was disclosed, if the information was just seen or was actively stolen by third parties. A data breach can result from different causes, such as malware attacks or hacks, employee negligence, social engineering, insider theft, stolen or lost devices. Sometimes, these breaches can also appear due to poor data security from the company side. 

Do you have any legal grounds for suing the company?

Once you figure out that your data was indeed stolen and the data breach caused personal damage of any nature, you can try to sue the company. However, it’s important to talk with a legal expert, to see if you actually have the legal grounds to sue the company for a data breach or not. 

• Negligence is one of the most common legal claims you can have during such a case. The company you work with has a duty of care to protect your data, and they breached that trust. 
• You could also sue them due to a breach of contract. As a consumer, there’s an implied/explicit agreement that the company you work with will protect your personal info. In case your data was breached, then you can sue for breach of contract. You can state that the company did not fulfill their contractual obligation to protect your personal information. That way, you have the legal grounds to initiate a lawsuit.
• Breach of implied duty or good faith is also something you can use as the grounds for your lawsuit. If the company fails to act responsibly and honestly to protect your data, you can try to sue them.
• It’s also possible to sue by using the privacy laws/statutes as grounds for the lawsuit. These include GDPR, FTC Act, CCPA, HIPAA and so on.
• Another reason can be the invasion of privacy. In case the negligence of a company brought unwanted exposure for your data, then you have the legal grounds to sue them, with the reason being invasion of privacy.

When can you sue the company for data breach?

In order to sue a company for data breach, usually, you need to meet 3 critical requirements. First, you have to show that the company was responsible for protecting your data. And then you need evidence to show they failed to take reasonable steps and protect your data. 

Lastly, you need to show that you suffered measurable harm. Courts need to see proof that you experienced actual damages due to the breach. Generally, that can entail things like financial losses, reputational harm, lost wages, costs related to identity restoration and anything of that nature.

Who can be sued after a data breach?

It always depends on the situation, and that’s why you want to work with a lawyer. They can offer guidance and assistance when it comes to your specific situation. However, in general, you can sue hackers, employees responsible for the negligence actions, but also cloud storage providers or third party vendors, along with service providers. You will need to show proof that party was specifically involved and it’s due to them that you suffered provable damages. 

Many data breach lawsuits happened over the years. For example, in 2017, Equifax exposed the personal data of over 147 million people during a lawsuit. And in that case, the company settled for $700 million, along with compensation for consumers and some regulatory penalties.

Target also had a data breach in 2013. That breach affected over 40 million customers, and their credit card details were shared. The company paid $18.5 million in a settlement, and it was one of the first situations to show that not updating security protocols can lead to liability. And there were other breaches, like Yahoo who had to pay $117.5 million to settle class-action lawsuits between 2013 and 2016. 

Conclusion

If you suffered any type of losses from a data breach, you have the right to sue the company in question. However, you want to make sure that there are legal grounds and you can prove your damages, so you can show them in court. Otherwise, your lawsuit might not have grounds and you can’t sue them properly. That’s why you want to have data breach lawyers to help you during this process. They can help prepare the case, while also ensuring that any of your claims have provable evidence!