November 13, 2013. Privacy litigation in state and federal courts across the nation of claims alleging violations of federal and state consumer privacy laws is on the rise. The cases range from multidistrict nationwide federal class action privacy claims, tried in federal court to administrative proceedings claims brought under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and related state statutes. The privacy laws at issue encompass every major privacy regulation, including the FCRA, the privacy rules under the Gramm Leach Bliley Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and analogous state laws. Every regulated industry is subject to privacy regulation and includes credit bureaus, insurance companies, banks and other financial institutions, cable companies, pharmacies, health care providers, consumer information trade associations, and other businesses which use consumer information.
Even though privacy plaintiffs have had a difficult time establishing an actionable level of damages in privacy cases (see Rudgayzer v. Yahoo!, Ruiz v. Gap, In re Facebook Privacy Litigation, and Krottner v. Starbucks as examples of courts rejecting what they characterized as conjectural allegations of harm; however, rulings in Resnick v. AvMed, Burrows v. Purchasing Power, and In re Sony Gaming Networks are thought to be promising rulings for plaintiffs), privacy litigation is going to increase.
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