Ashley Madison May Face Data Hack Class Action Lawsuit

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With the personal information hack of 39 million Ashley Madison members, legal experts predict a class action lawsuit could be the inevitable next step.

The Ashley Madison website claims to be the most successful site for “finding an affair and cheating partners.” However, after the exposure of their members’ names, street addresses, email addresses and the last four digits of their credit cards, several law firms have been approached about a possible Ashley Madison class action lawsuit.

In Canada, a $760 million Ashley Madison data breach class action lawsuit has already been announced by lead plaintiff Eliot Shore who claims he joined the infidelity website for a short time after his wife died and allegedly never met anyone in person. Shore is suing Ashley Madison’s parent company Avid Life for the data breach that revealed his membership to the “reputable married dating company.”

Attorneys in the United States have also been contacted by current and former Ashley Madison members who had their private information publicly released. An Ashley Madison lawsuit has been filed in Missouri by a “Jane Doe” who claims she paid the website $19 to have her information permanently removed. However, she alleges her personal information was released in the data hack.

Similar to any data breach class action lawsuit, those interested in joining will have to prove they were harmed in order to be awarded damages. Some legal experts state that might not be as easy as it sounds, as public humiliation may not be enough of an injury to allow an Ashley Madison class action lawsuit to move forward through the court system.

The other issue facing potential Ashley Madison plaintiffs is that it’s not clear whether the courts will allow for their anonymity. In general, courts will allow certain plaintiffs to file anonymously under special circumstances, but “embarrassment” may not be reason enough, which means any potential plaintiffs would have to face further exposure.

The hacking group known as the Impact Team warned Avid Life last month that they would release membership data if websites Ashley Madison and Established Men were not shut down. While the Ashley Madison website guarantees affairs for married individuals, Established Men is a website that matches “attractive young women with successful and generous benefactors to fulfill their lifestyle needs.”

The Impact Team hackers threatened to expose “all customer records, profiles with all the customers’ secret sexual fantasies, nude pictures, and conversations and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails,” if their demands were not met.

After the data breach, Ashley Madison officials have stated that the hack does not necessarily prove that cheating or affairs took place between members. The company alleges that they do not check email addresses or collect phone numbers when individuals sign up, so allegedly no account can be conclusively linked to a specific individual.

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UPDATE: On Dec. 9, 2015, several class action lawsuits filed over the Ashley Madison data breach were consolidated in Missouri federal court.

UPDATE 2: On Apr. 6, 2016, a Missouri federal judge ruled that plaintiffs seeking to act as Class representatives in the Ashley Madison data breach class action lawsuit cannot use pseudonyms and must disclose their real names.

UPDATE 3: On June 24, 2016, in response to a recent federal court ruling, 18 plaintiffs who have filed suit against Ashley Madison over the highly-publicized data breach have amended their complaint to include their own names.

UPDATE 4: On July 14, 2017, Ashley Madison’s parent company agreed topay $11.2 million to settleclaims arising from a data breach that revealed personal information about those using the adultery dating website.UPDATE 5: The Ashley Madison data breach class action settlement is now open.

 Click here to file a claim.