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ARTICLE · 01 MAY 2023

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Optus Faces The Mother-of-All Data Breach Class Actions

K&L Gates
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Without regular hygiene, personal information holdings can grow out to mother lode proportions, and the last thing Australia needs is a data breach gold rush.

AustraliaPrivacy
Cameron Abbott
Cameron Abbott
Rob Pulham
Rob Pulham
Stephanie Mayhew
Stephanie Mayhew
Dadar Ahmadi-Pirshahid
Dadar Ahmadi-Pirshahid

The data breach that affected 9.8 million Australians and resulted in the personal information of 10,000 Optus customers being exposed on the dark web in September last year will be litigated in a class action lawsuit filed last Friday (21 April) in the Federal Court of Australia.

The allegations made against Optus include that the telecommunications company breached its contract with and duty of care towards Optus customers, that Optus breached the Australian Consumer Law and that Optus breached the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 ("Privacy Act").

The class is broad, including "[a]ll former and current Optus customers whose information was compromised in the September 2022 data breach", which means that the potential liability in dispute is quite substantial.

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