A class action has been launched on behalf of MediBank customers whose highly sensitive health data was stolen during the massive Medibank data breach occurring last October.
What is a class action lawsuit
A class action is a type of lawsuit in which one person brings a claim on behalf of a wider group of people who have been affected in a similar way, or by the same conduct. By grouping claims together and pursuing them collectively, the overall value of the claim goes up, while the cost to each member goes down. Some examples of prominent class action lawsuits and their settlements are BP’s deepwater horizon oil spill of 2010 in which the settlement was 20 billion and the largest settlement being 206 billion within the tobacco industry.
What happened during the MediBank data breach
In October 2022, data from millions of current and former Medibank customers were hacked by a Russian ransomware group that released the information in stages onto the dark web. In what became the largest security breach of its kind in Australian history, the hack revealed the personal details of 9.7 million current and former customers, including 5.1 million Medibank customers, 2.8 million AHM customers and 1.8 million international customers.
What is the class action about and trying to achieve
Law firm, Slater and Gordon, has issued a class action in the Federal Court. Its objective is to seek compensation for people caught up in the October 2022 breach. The claim argues Medibank and AHM failed to take reasonable steps to protect their customers' personal information from the data breach, failed to destroy former customers' information and neglected their legal obligations in collecting, using, storing and disclosing consumer information.
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