Data protection

Marriott faces class action over hack

Marriott International is facing a class-action lawsuit in London after the data hack revealed in 2018 which affected 339 million people.

The lawsuit was filed in the UK, with the action representing everyone in England and Wales whose data was stolen in the breach.

Martin Bryant, a technology consultant and journalist leading the lawsuit, said: "It’s become a depressingly familiar situation. You get an email from a company telling you that they’ve suffered a data breach and your personal information was stolen. You sigh, you shrug, and then you forget about it — because you’re powerless. You can’t get that personal data back. It might end up being used for identity theft or fraud, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

“But the fact is there should be recompense. If a major corporation suffers a breach because it didn’t do everything it could to protect your data, and the worst it suffers is a fine for breaking data protection rules, there’s little incentive for anything to really change. But if the company becomes accountable to the customers whose data they lost, it’s a different matter.”

 

Marriott declined to comment.