Intel is facing a class-action suit in Florida that accuses the company of violating the 2020 Florida Security of Communications Act, which states that it is illegal to intentionally intercept an individual's electronic communications without the person's consent, Threatpost reports. Lake County resident Holly Londers filed the lawsuit last month, alleging that Intel used a session replay software to track and record her activity when she visited the company's website last year. According to the filing, Londers' key strokes, mouse movements and other aspects of her interaction with the site were intercepted without her consent or knowledge. "Defendant's surreptitious interception [of] Plaintiff's electronic communications caused Plaintiff harm, including invasion of her privacy and/or the exposure of private information," the filing stated. The suit added that the tech giant also engaged in a similar activity with other residents in the state, and the class in the suit is for every Florida resident who visited the company's site and whose electronic activity was intercepted.
Jill Aitoro is senior vice president of content strategy for CyberRisk Alliance. She has more than 20 years of experience editing and reporting on technology, business and policy. Prior to joining CRA, she worked at Sightline Media as editor of Defense News and executive editor of the Business-to-Government Group. She previously worked at Washington Business Journal and Nextgov, covering federal technology, contracting and policy, as well as CMP Media’s VARBusiness and CRN and Penton Media’s iSeries News.
Montana has become the latest state to approve legislation aimed at strengthening data privacy protections, joining eight other states that have passed data privacy laws, even as such a measure continues to elude progress at the federal level, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
Exposing companies to potential lawsuits tied to poorly developed software could incentivize the industry to design more secure products. Here's why that might be difficult to implement.