A class action style suit has been filed in the UK against hotel group Marriott International over a massive data breach that exposed the information of some 500 million guests around the world, including around 30 million residents of the European Union, between July 2014 and September 2018.
The representative legal action against Marriott has been filed by UK resident, Martin Bryant, on behalf of millions of hotel guests domiciled in England & Wales who made reservations at hotel brands globally within the Starwood Hotels group, which is now part of Marriott International.
Hackers gained access to the systems of the Starwood Hotels group, starting in 2014, where they were able to help themselves to information such as guests’ names; email and postal addresses; telephone numbers; gender and credit card data. Marriott International acquired the Starwood Hotels group in 2016 — but the breach went undiscovered until 2018.
Bryant is being represented by international law firm, Hausfeld, which specialises in group actions.
Commenting in a statement, Hausfeld partner, Michael Bywell, said: “Over a period of several years, Marriott International failed to take adequate technical or organisational measures to protect millions of their guests’ personal data which was entrusted to them. Marriott International acted in clear breach of data protection laws specifically put in place to protect data subjects.”
“Personal data is increasingly critical as we live more of our lives online, but as consumers we don’t always realise the risks we are exposed to when our data is compromised through no fault of our own. I hope this case will raise awareness of the value of our personal data, result in fair compensation for those of us who have fallen foul of Marriott’s vast and long-lasting data breach, and also serve notice to other data owners that they must hold our data responsibly,” added Bryant in another supporting statement.
We’ve reached out to Marriott International for comment on the legal action.
A claim website for the action invites other eligible UK individuals to register their interest — and “hold Marriott to account for not securing your personal data”, as it puts it.
Here are the details of who is eligible to register their interest:
The ‘class’ of claimants on whose behalf the claim is brought includes all individuals who at any date prior to 10 September 2018 made a reservation online at a hotel operating under any of the following brands: W Hotels, St. Regis, Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, Westin Hotels & Resorts, Element Hotels, Aloft Hotels, The Luxury Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Le Méridien Hotel & Resorts, Four Points by Sheraton, Design Hotels. In addition, any other brand owned and/or operated by Marriott International Inc or Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide LLC. The individuals must have been resident in England and Wales at some point during the relevant period prior to 10 September 2018 and are resident in England and Wales at the date the claim was issued. They must also have been at least 18 years old at the date the claim was issued.
The claim is being brought as a representative action under Rule 19.6 of the Civil Procedure Rules, per a press release, which also notes that everyone with the same interest as Bryant is included in the claimant class unless they opt out.
Those eligible to participate face no fees or costs, nor do affected guests face any financial risk from the litigation — which is being fully funded by Harbour Litigation Funding, a global litigation funder.
The suit is the latest sign that litigation funders are willing to take a punt on representative actions in the UK as a route to obtaining substantial damages for data issues. Another class action style suit was announced last week — targeting tracking cookies operated by data broker giants, Oracle and Salesforce.
Both lawsuits follow a landmark decision by a UK appeals court last year which allowed a class action-style suit against Google’s use between 2011 and 2012 of tracking cookies to override iPhone users’ privacy settings in Apple’s Safari browser to proceed, overturning an earlier court decision to toss the case.
The other unifying factor is the existence of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) framework which has opened the door to major fines for data protection violations. So even if EU regulators continue to lack uniform vigour in enforcing data protection law, there’s a chance the region’s courts will do the job for them if more litigation funders see value in bringing representative cases to pursue damages for privacy violations.
The dates of the Marriott data breach means it falls under GDPR — which came into application in May 2018.
The UK’s data watchdog, the ICO, proposed a $123M fine for the security failing in July last year — saying then that the hotel operator had “failed to undertake sufficient due diligence when it bought Starwood and should also have done more to secure its systems”.
However it has yet to hand down a final decision. Asked when the Marriott decision will be finalized, an ICO spokeswoman told us the “regulatory process” has been extended until September 30. No additional detail was offered to explain the delay.
Here’s the regulator’s statement in full:
Under Schedule 16 of the Data Protection Act 2018, Marriott has agreed to an extension of the regulatory process until 30 September. We will not be commenting until the regulatory process has concluded.
