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Capital One and Amazon’s failure to adequately safeguard credit card holders’ personal data allowed it to be compromised in a 2019 data breach, according to a class action lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of Québec.
Not only did the defendants fail to safeguard against the Capital One credit card data breach, they also failed to provide timely notification to those who were affected, the Capital One data breach class action lawsuit says. The data theft reportedly occurred on March 22 and 23, 2019 and was initially discovered on July 17, 2019. However, the data breach was not disclosed to the public until July 29, 2019.
“This case involves one of the biggest data security breaches in history,” the Capital One data breach class action lawsuit states.
Capital One has collected massive amounts of data on its customers since 2005. To store and mine this data, it had created a massive data centre that it would spend significant amounts of money to upgrade, maintain and secure.
“Class Members entrusted their most sensitive data — data that could be used by a miscreant to assume those customers’ identities — to a bank and cloud computing company based on their reasonable belief that it would be safe and secure,” the Capital One data breach class action lawsuit alleges.
“Capital One and Amazon thoroughly monetized (and continue to monetize) sensitive Capital One Customer data, mining it for every edge and insight about their behaviours.”
Capital One decided the cost of maintaining a data centre was too high and decided to utilize Amazon’s AWS public cloud to store and process customer data in 2015. This system allowed Capital One to buy only as much computing power and storage as it needed. It also allowed the credit card company to take advantage of Amazon’s machine learning tools and data scientists.
“Unfortunately, there were serious problems with using AWS to mine customer data,” the data breach class action lawsuit says. “Most importantly, the machine learning models required massive amounts of historical data and if the data was insufficient, the models would not be accurate.”
According to the data breach class action lawsuit, Capital One created massive repositories of customer data that included “data retained far in excess of customer expectations.”
Unlike other large financial institutions that prioritized the security of customer data, Capital One elected to provide customers’ sensitive data to a public cloud provider. At the same time, Amazon was looking for a large financial institution to sign on to the AWS ecosystem to signal to other financial institutions that it was safe to put their data in the public cloud.
Because it was widely known that AWS suffered from a security flaw, Capital One created software that it jointly marketed with Amazon to misleadingly reassure customers, regulators and the public that the data would be protected. However, this software reportedly failed to safeguard the data as promised.
The data breach reportedly affects information that was collected at the time individuals and small businesses applied for a Capital One credit card between 2005 and 2019. The information compromised in the data breach may include: names, addresses, postal codes, phone numbers, email addresses, birthdates, credit card application data, and other customer data.
According to the data breach class action lawsuit, Capital One and Amazon together “orchestrated a massive migration of highly-sensitive data” to a public AWS cloud from Capital One’s private cloud. Together, Amazon and Capital One allegedly misled customers, regulators and members of the public by claiming the data was being protected. However, the Capital One data breach class action lawsuit says these assurances are “indisputably false and/or misleading.”
Capital One credit card holders and applicants who reside in Quebec and whose personal information was compromised in the Capital One credit card data breach incident that occurred on March 22-23, 2019 are included as potential Class Members of this data breach class action lawsuit.
Approximately 100 million U.S. residents and 6 million Canadians were likely impacted by the Capital One credit card data breach. Additionally, about 1 million social insurance numbers were compromised.
The Capital One data breach class action lawsuit asks a judge to order the defendants to implement safeguards to prevent and detect unauthorized access to private information, and offer compensatory and punitive damages to Class Members.
A similar Capital One credit card data breach class action lawsuit has been filed in Calgary.
Do you have a Capital One credit card? Are you worried about your personal information being exposed in this data breach? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below!
The plaintiffs are represented by Jeff Orenstein of Consumer Law Group Inc.
The Capital One Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit is M. Royer, et al. v. Capital One Bank (Canada Branch), et al., Case No. 500-06-001010-194, in the Superior Court of Québec, Canada.
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36 thoughts onCapital One Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit Says Millions Were Impacted
Hello, my name is Rebecca Saarinen. Capital One sent me a letter to verify my correct information and to reset my password. I went to the TransuUnion website, I answered some questions and when the question about former employers were listed, in an option of four possible former employers and the option of not any of my former employers, I selected not any of my former employers, because they were not any of my former employers, on the next screen, it stated Error: Contact the TransUnion Customer Service Phone Number. I called the TransUnion Customer Service Phone Number and I spoke with a man. I told him that I was having trouble resetting my password on the TransUnion website, I entered my information and the list of four possible former employers was incorrect, the next screen stated Error: Contact the TransUnion Customer Service Phone Number. The man laughed at what I told him! He said to me “Let’s just pretend that this never happened!” I was in shock. I ended the phone call with him. I have noticed extra charges on my credit card and emails from Scotia Bank saying my account will be canceled, I have never had a Scotia Bank account, and some internet website emails saying that they are returning my funds from internet websites for school and shopping. I would like to please sign-up for the Capital One Class Action Lawsuit. Thank-you for reading my information. My phone number is 647-607-4119. Take care and have a good one. TTYL.
I too have a capital one credit card. How do i sign up for the lawsuit ? Please include me in this. Thank you.
I have a Captial One Mastercard how do I sign up or inquire about lawsuit?
Requesting information regarding proceed to sign up for the class action law suit?
I have capital one card. Please tell me how do I apply or inquire about the law suit?
I have a Capital One Credit Card and have been impacted by this breach. Please send me information on how to apply for this law suite.
Hello my husband presently has a Capital one Mastercard. He recalls hearing about the breach of personal information in the media and then getting a request from Capital One to change passwords.
How can we join the class action suit?
My husband and I both have capital one cards. Please tell me how do I apply or inquire about the law suit?
I have two capital one cards..ihavebeen noticing alone if calls regarding my capital one accounts..asking me to verify my address etc.
I just hung up.on them..because it was very suspicious..i want in on this law suit
I have two capital one cards…one in Daniel Lacroix’s name and one in Rita Lacroix’s name ..how do I sign up for the lawsuit.
How do I know about that capital one breech if I was one of them all the information was given out on cuz I had someone call trying to get get all my credit cards together and everything they knew the last four numbers of my credit card and the amount that was owed how do I know if I was one of them the information was given out on