Ruling on a motion for class certification, Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California, identifies the following relevant facts:
- Reuters also owns an online platform called CLEAR, which provides access to public and non-public information about American consumers, including Californians. FAC ¶¶ 1–2. Reuters collects surface and deep web data, including from social media, third-party data brokers, law enforcement agencies, live cell phone records, location data from license plate detections, real-time booking information from thousands of facilities, historical arrest records and intake photos, credit agencies, DMV records, cellphone registries, social-media posts, property records, utility accounts, professional and fishing licenses, internet chat rooms, court records, and bankruptcy filings. CAT BROOKS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. THOMSON REUTERS CORPORATION, et al., Defendants. Additional Party Names: Rasheed Shabazz, No. 21-CV-01418-EMC, 2023 WL 9316647, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 10, 2023).
- Reuters then aggregates and sells the information, such as names, photographs, criminal history, relatives, associates, financial information, and employment information. Id. at *2.
- Reuters markets the CLEAR platform to private corporations, law enforcement, and other government agencies. Id.
- Reuters does not obtain the consent of the Californian subjects whose information is on CLEAR….Indeed, most Californians do not even know that their data is on CLEAR. Id.
- Moreover, Reuters does not give subjects a reasonable way to remove or correct their information on CLEAR. Id.
Because the right to privacy in personal information is a traditionally recognized right and “encompasses the individual’s control of information concerning his or her person,” allegations that a company has violated a plaintiff’s right to privacy by collecting personal information without consent involve a sufficiently “concrete” injury, even if there are no additional allegations of publication, because the invasion itself causes harm to the plaintiff’s interest in controlling the information. Eichenberger v. ESPN, Inc., 876 F.3d 979, 983 (9th Cir. 2017); see also Mastel v. Miniclip SA, 549 F. Supp. 3d 1129, 1139 (E.D. Cal. 2021) (“Though Facebook Tracking and Eichenberger were decided before TransUnion, they are not overruled by TransUnion.”). Reuters 10 has directly contravened Californians’ right to keep private their most intimate and personal information by collecting their data without consent, aggregating, and offering it for sale to great profit. Such harm is sufficient to confer Article III standing.
Id. at *6.