Latitude Financial cyber lawsuit thrown out
Make us a preferred source
Make us a preferred source on Google
The news: Latitude Financial Services has seen the lawsuit brought by a former customer over its March 2023 cyberattack thrown out of court.
The context: In her ruling, Federal Court of Australia Judge Melissa Perry said Shahriar Saffari had no "reasonable prospects of success" against Latitude.
Saffari was a self-representing individual trying to claim $1 million from Latitude as he alleged the company failed to protect his personal information.
In more recent parts of the lawsuit, Saffari had applied to take related legal action against DXC Technologies and Crowdstrike as companies he alleged were responsible for aspects of Latitude's cybersecurity.
Perry threw out the bid to bring the two companies into the case, as well as the entire case in her decision today.
Australia's privacy regulator, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), is conducting a joint investigation into the cyberattack with New Zealand's privacy regulator.
If the investigation finds serious and/or repeated interferences with privacy in contravention of Australian privacy law, then the OAIC has the power to seek civil penalties through the Federal Court of up to $50 million for each legal breach. That's regardless of what the New Zealand regulator finds.
The privacy regulator is also considering more than one representative complaint brought to it over the Latitude cyber breach, which could see the regulator pursue compensation for complainants before the courts.
The source: Federal Court of Australia
