*The Sydney Times republishes this update sent to Registrants in this matter in the Public Interest
This is an update about our recent work on the Latitude Financial data breach class action investigation.
Registrations
Thank you all for your help so far in registering and responding to our surveys. You have helped us us to build a picture of the effects of the Latitude data breach on customers. Our registrations for the Class Action Investigation are continuing to increase. Since our last update we have had an additional 15,000 registrations, bringing us to a total of around 70,000 people. This is an incredible rate of response.
Registrations are still open and we encourage anyone who has been affected by the data breach to share their experiences with us, if you haven’t done so already.
We are continuing to work through your registrations and survey responses to gain a better understanding of what happened and how the data breach affected you. This information is helping us to build a case against Latitude.
Almost all of you have reported:
- A large increase in spam calls;
- Difficulties getting in touch with Latitude; and/or
- Needing to spend time to replace stolen identity documents.
Complaint to the Privacy Ombudsman
As you are aware, we filed a representative complaint with the Australian Privacy Ombudsman (the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner) regarding the data breach. We also filed a representative complaint with the New Zealand Office of the Privacy Commissioner for New Zealand-based customers.
We understand that the OAIC and the NZ Office of the Privacy Commissioner are conducting a joint investigation into the data breach. They have not released any updates about the progress of their investigations yet.
We understand the OAIC has been required to appear in the Medibank Data Breach proceedings to answer the Court’s questions about delays in that case.
We are continuing to monitor the progress of these cases and will be in touch when we have new information for you.
At this stage, our investigations are continuing into bringing a class action against Latitude.
We will provide you with a further update in the coming weeks.
Kind regards,
Gordon Legal
