Agromart Data Breach Exposed Thousands of Canadians’ Information, Class Action Claims

An Ontario farmer has filed a proposed class action lawsuit claiming her and thousands of Canadian consumers’ personal and sensitive information was exposed in the Agromart data breach after the company refused to pay a ransom.

Lead plaintiff, Theresa Oriet, filed the lawsuit against Sollio Agriculture L.P. and their partner the Agronomy Company of Canada Ltd. claiming they collected an unnecessary amount of information from consumers and then failed to protect it.

Oriet, the CEO of Oriet Farms located in Ontario, says she was required to disclose her address, phone number, email address, SIN, driver’s license number, birthdate, spouse’s birthdate, and spouse’s driver’s license number on an Agromart Credit Application and Agreement just to make a transaction in 2018.

The vast amounts of sensitive personal information Sollio and Agronomy collected was “unlawfully and negligently retained, stored and managed” alleges the class action, leaving it ripe for theft by hackers.

Indeed, the databases maintained by Sollio and Agronomy were infiltrated by hackers in May of 2020, demanding money from the defendants in exchange for not disclosing the stolen personal information. Agromart allegedly refused to pay the ransom and the farmers’ information was dumped into the dark web and auctioned off.

Oriet says that she experienced fraudulent transactions on her credit card following the data breach. She alleges that she fears future and ongoing issues, including identity theft, fraud, and other cyber crime due to the company’s failure to properly protect her data.

“They employed no or wholly substandard security measures that were inappropriate relative to the importance and sensitivity of the class members’ personal information,” contends the lawsuit. “The defendants failed to act to address known or knowable vulnerabilities in their cyber security systems.”

The proposed class action lawsuit seeks damages on behalf of the thousands of Canadian consumers whose sensitive personal information was exposed in the Agromart data breach.

Was your personal information disclosed in the Agromart data breach? Tell us about your experience in the comment section below!

The lead plaintiff, Theresa Oriet, is represented by Jonathan J. Foreman and Anne E. Legate-Wolfe of Foreman & Company PC, and Margaret L. Waddell and Tina Q. Yang of Waddell Phillips PC.

The Agromart Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit is Oriet v. Agronomy Company of Canada LTD., et al., Case No. CV-21-00000241-00CP, in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Canada.

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