Canadian privacy lawyer David T.S. Fraser writes: The Federal Court, in the recently issued decision in Henry v Bell Mobility 2014 FC 555 (not yet on CanLII or the Court’s site) has awarded a very modest sum of damages to a customer of Bell Mobility whose phone account was accessed by an impostor. At the hearing…
Author: Dissent
Metropolitan Companies hacked; member personal information accessed
The Metropolitan Companies, Inc. which includes Metropolitan Interpreters and Translators, Metlang LLC, Metropolitan Hospitality, Inc.,CTI Metropolitan LLC, and Metropolitan Temporaries provides staffing resources for various organizations. They are in the process of notifying those who obtained work through them or who applied for work that a hacker appears to have accessed their systems and removed…
File containing asylum seekers’ data downloaded in China, Russia and Egypt
Paul Farrell and Oliver Laughland report: A file containing the personal details of almost 10,000 people in detention was accessed in 16 countries, including China, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan and Russia, raising further concerns that asylum seekers returned to their countries of origin or their families may be at risk of persecution. In February the immigration…
Bank not liable for customer’s $440,000 cybertheft
Jaikumar Vijayan reports: A Missouri escrow firm that lost $440,000 in a 2010 cyberheist cannot hold its bank responsible, an appeals court ruled this week. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit’s decision this month affirmed a lower court ruling in the case. The appeals court also held that the escrow firm can be…
Code Spaces destroyed in wake of extortion demand
Ouch. Here’s the cached copy of a notice that appeared on the code hosting site earlier: Code Spaces : Is Down! Dear Customers, On Tuesday the 17th of June 2014 we received a well orchestrated DDOS against our servers, this happens quite often and we normally overcome them in a way that is transparent to the Code Spaces community. On…
Canada: Stolen Customer Data Results In Ontario’s First Certified Privacy Class Action
Michael J. Paris of Bennett Jones LLP writes: Businesses that collect personal information have an added incentive to monitor employees handling customer data – Ontario’s first class action arising from the new tort of “intrusion upon seclusion” was certified last week.1 In Evans v Bank of Nova Scotia, the plaintiffs sought to certify a class action…