Vancouver lawyer files civil claim over Marriott client data breach
Posted December 18, 2018 6:22 pm.
Last Updated December 18, 2018 6:23 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — A Vancouver law firm has filed a civil claim on behalf of Marriott hotel customers who may have had their privacy violated in a years-long security breach.
Kevin McLaren, a partner with Hammerberg Lawyers, says it’s not clear how many B.C. clients are affected, but up to 500 million guests could be victims of a breach that happened in 2014 and wasn’t detected until Sept. 10 this year.
“We’ve had a number of people reach out indicating that they’ve stayed at the Starwood properties and then we’ve had a number of people who also reached out indicating that they had received an email from Marriott indicating that they were possibly subject to the data breach,” McLaren tells NEWS 1130.
In a news release last month, Marriott International says an “unauthorized party” has stolen an array of personal information on Marriott and Starwood clients and that the company was able to decrypt the data, which it found out were duplicates of guest data.
“For approximately 327 million of these guests, the information includes some combination of name, mailing address, phone number, email address, passport number, Starwood Preferred Guest account information, date of birth, gender, arrival and departure information, reservation date, and communication preferences,” the release reads.
Credit card information was also taken but Marriott writes it uses “Advanced Encryption Standard encryption” to secure payment information.
McLaren says the next step involves rounding up any possible victims from B.C. and having this case certified as class action.
“On a rolling basis, they are emailing people who may be affected,” McLaren says. “As far as I’m aware, they haven’t emailed everybody yet.”
