Class-Action Plaintiffs Allege
National Public Data Breached
2.9 Million Victims’ Data
8/12/24 Eclectic sources
A class-action federal lawsuit was filed against Jerico Pictures Inc., operating as National Public Data (NPD), in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Hofmann v. National Public Data, Inc. 2:22-cv-01234 [Editor’s note: filing date unknown; this case many have been filed in 2022 and has only recently come into public interest.]
The plaintiff, Christopher Hofmann, accused NPD of failing to properly protect sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) collected by the company.
The suit alleges the data is now on the dark web.
TechRadar.com* article informs that “National Public Data uses a process called ‘scraping’ to collect and store personal identifying data from non-public sources.”*
The scraped data is used to do “background checks on billions of people. … The information was scraped without consent of the victims, and many victims may not know it was stored at all.”*
Exposed data includes:
- full names,
- current and past addresses (dating back at least three decades),
- social security numbers,
- linked info about family members (parents, kids, relatives) including deceased people.
Politics Involved
USA politicians rarely, if ever, pass real consumer-oriented privacy legislation like California and European Union subjects enjoy because such politicians mostly represent the interests of for-profit corporations.
___ References:
One of the biggest data breaches ever leaks details on billions of users: National Public Data accused of negligence in a class action lawsuit, by Ellen Jennings-Trace, 8/06/2024 https://www.techradar.com/pro/3-billion-people-s-personal-data-leaked-to-the-dark-web-including-social-security-numbers
Copilot sources, 8/12/2024:
National Public Data Sued for Hack that Exposed Data of 2.9 Billion. … https://securityboulevard.com/2024/08/national-public-data-sued-for-hack-that-exposed-data-of-2-9-billion-people/. https://securityboulevard.com/2024/08/national-public-data-sued-for-hack-that-exposed-data-of-2-9-billion-people/
Personal Data of Almost 3 Billion People Revealed in Hack, Lawsuit …. https://www.benzinga.com/news/legal/24/08/40228120/personal-data-of-almost-3-billion-people-revealed-in-hack-lawsuit-filed. …
https://www.benzinga.com/news/legal/24/08/40228120/personal-data-of-almost-3-billion-people-revealed-in-hack-lawsuit-filed
