Last week, there was a lot of talk on the internet about the leak and disclosure of Yandex.Food user data. Later, the service issued an official apology and informed that law enforcement was interested in the case. At the same time, the company itself has strengthened measures to protect personal data and will give users the opportunity to manage some of them themselves, including deletion.
Enterprise groups began to appear on the Internet offering help in the preparation of class action lawsuits against the delivery service.
However, it is too early to talk about the existence of reasons for such class action. A leak in the service is not proof of Yandex.Food’s fault. At the same time, in the case that turned out, the company itself actually suffered from theft of the base. In its official messages, the service says that after the incident, it turned to law enforcement, an audit was carried out, which should have authorized bodies to find out all the details of the case and establish the crime of the company. .
In this case, it is important to understand whether all company-related measures have been taken to detect and prevent hacks and unauthorized access by its own employees and third parties. This is necessary to establish the guilt of the company (Article 2.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation).
In addition, plaintiffs must prove that the leaks caused them moral or other harm; this is quite difficult and requires clarification of many conditions in each particular case. The situation is complicated by the publication on the sites of personal data, which, according to media reports, was stolen not only from Yandex.Food, but also from other services. Therefore, against the background of the fact that the sources to which the data was sent collect such information from various sources, it is still unclear how the plaintiffs will defend their claims, especially against Yandex, and it is often difficult to determine where they came from. .
Class action lawsuits from human rights organizations and companies engaged in such activities are a complex procedure. “In the beginning” it is often difficult, and sometimes completely impossible, to obtain a sufficient amount of information to prove the existence of a violation in Yandex’s actions. At the same time, according to Art. According to article 244.20 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation, such organizations cannot independently apply to the court on their behalf with a class action, since they do not suffer from data leakage.
In order to file a claim, they will need to obtain a power of attorney from all applicants who decide to join the case. This is not an easy and expensive procedure, especially if we are talking about a class action lawsuit with a large number of participants – the process at this stage can take a long time.
Roskomnadzor, who has the right to do this on his own behalf in the interests of the victims, can apply to the court with such a case. However, it is too early to talk about this as the administrative case continues.
Therefore, it is too early to draw any conclusions. But what can be said with certainty is that class action lawsuits are a long process and do not always bring the desired results. More than 50 consumers were involved in one of the high-profile and media-reported lawsuits against FemFatal. Despite the growing interest in the process, the court did not satisfy the claim. Such lawsuits against large companies are often used by organizers, including for advertising purposes, and lawsuits do not always reach their logical end.
The author’s view may not coincide with the editors’ position.
Source: Gazeta
