Tort Of Intrusion Upon Seclusion Does Not Apply To Third Party Data Breach

On November 25, 2022, the Ontario Court of Appeal released a trilogy of decisions that firmly shut the door on the pleading of the tort of intrusion upon seclusion by plaintiffs advancing proposed class actions against companies that have suffered a third party data breaches.

Unless successfully appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, these decisions -Owsianik v. Equifax Canada Co.,2022 ONCA 813("Owsianik"); Obodo v. Trans Union of Canada, Inc.,2022 ONCA 814("Obodo"); andWinder v. Marriott International, Inc.,2022 ONCA 815- raise a significant barrier to the certification of class actions in instances where criminals have accessed stored personal information of customers, but there is no evidence of resulting harm to those individuals.