T-Mobile Faces Two Lawsuits After Latest Data Breach
Earlier this week, T-Mobile revealed that it suffered a major data breach. The sensitive information that was exposed included names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth of some 48 million million customers. That number increased to 53 million in recent days. People affected by the breach are current, former and even potential customers. This is not the first time that this has happened. It is T-Mobile’s fifth data breach over the last few years.
Now some of the customers affected by the latest data breach have filed lawsuits against the wireless carrier. Bloomberg reports that two lawsuits accuse T-Mobile of violating the California Consumer Privacy Act which allows any Californian the right to see all the information a company has saved on them, as well as a full list of all the third parties that data is shared with. One of the lawsuits also accuses T-Mobile of violating the Washington State Consumer Protection Act due to its poor data security.
The lawsuit Espanoza v. T-Mobile USA Inc. claims that customer identities are at risk because of neglect on the part of T-Mobile. The plaintiffs are also concerned with the monetary costs and the “time spent mitigating the effects of the Data Breach, including time spent dealing with actual or attempted fraud and identity theft.”
On the other lawsuit, plaintiff Veera Daruwalla, a resident of Kern County, California, alleges that she has already spent hours addressing privacy concerns stemming from the breach, including reviewing financial and credit statements for evidence of unauthorized activity.
The cases are Daruwalla v. T-Mobile USA Inc., W.D. Wash., No. 2:21-cv-1118, complaint 8/19/21 and Espanoza v. T-Mobile USA Inc., W.D. Wash., No. 2:21-cv-1119, complaint 8/19/21.
