A Texas woman filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Aflac Inc. after receiving a notice about a data breach that could have given hackers access to her personally identifiable information and protected health information.
The plaintiff alleges that the insurer failed to take reasonable precautions to protect its customers’ sensitive information. The lawsuit, Jessica Batiste et al. v. Aflac Inc., was filed Saturday in federal court in Columbus, Georgia, where Aflac is based.
Aflac’s data security measures were “impermissibly inadequate” because it did not encrypt the information, the lawsuit alleges.
The plaintiff says she learned about the breach June 20 when she received a notice from Aflac about the June 12 incident. She says in her lawsuit that she now suffers from anxiety for fear that the leak of her private information puts her at a higher risk for identity theft and other types of fraudulent schemes, such as ransomware attacks.
“The exposure of one’s private information to cybercriminals is a bell that cannot be un-rung. Before this data breach, plaintiff’s and the class’s private information was exactly that — private. Not anymore. Now, their private information is forever exposed and unsecure,” the lawsuit says.
The plaintiff alleges that Aflac was negligent because it failed to comply with federal and state regulations and industry best practices for protecting private information.
Representatives for the parties did not respond to requests for comment.
