The telecom giant Optus was sued by Australian law firms seeking compensation for the breach of data of around 10 million current and former users of the company. Slater and Gordon a class action practice group had said that around 100,000 previous and current user registered for the suit against the telecom company had violated their agreement by breaching the personal information which they thought of being in secured status was exposed. This ravenous action has caused various emotional and financial damages and the trouble of re-verification of the data by the Government. The data contained sensitive personal information like Birth Proof, Personal details, address, driving licence registration numbers and various other information. The breach of this information has caused a vulnerable situation for various classes of people regarding Domestic abuse, Voyerism and various other cyber scams.
Last year in September Optus announced that the Data of around 10 million customers were compromised containing the personal details of every customer. The plaintiffs are not only claiming monetary damages but also the harassment, stress and trouble of re-issuing the documents from the government which were declared invalid. No amount had yet been mentioned but some sources have cited that “A settlement could well be worth billions, eclipsing the current record of $494 million paid to 10,000 victims of Victoria’s 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.”
The authorities of Optus are yet to reply to any of these claims, although a little effort was given by them in re-issuing the data breached as per the complainants the effort was a futile public neutrality stunt.
Another law firm Maurice Blackburn has lodged a separate complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, which has the power to levy large fines over privacy breaches. These suits are filed before the Federal courts of Australia on charges of breach of Fundamental Privacy Principles.
Swarnabh Saha, BcomLLB(H) Sem 6, St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata
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