Astanehe Law Files National Class Action for 2018 Data Breaches Impacting Thousands of U.S. Workers

San Francisco, California – Thousands of U.S. citizens have faced or face the risk of identity theft or financial ruin following a series of 2018 data breaches into Volt Information Sciences, Inc.’s (“Volt”) computer network.  On Friday, April 12, 2019, Astanehe Law, a leading San Francisco employee rights civil litigation law firm, filed a national class action lawsuit for Volt’s grievous mishandling of employee social security numbers, medical history and insurance, financial information, and other confidential information.

The Class Action Complaint alleges that Volt failed to “secure and safeguard its employees’ personal information including names, social security numbers, driver’s licenses… credit/debit card information, medical history information, health insurance.”  Further, the Class Action Complaint alleges that Volt corporate employees routinely stored confidential employee information in email inboxes, even years after workers left the company.

Without explanation and in disregard of the law, Volt failed to disclose the data breaches to affected workers for nearly four months.

“This lawsuit sends a message to large employers that confidential employee information matters.” Michael M. Astanehe, counsel for Plaintiffs, said via a statement released on Saturday, “You have a company that patently disregarded employee privacy by not encrypting sensitive information and storing the data, which includes social security numbers, in email inboxes. Now, thousands of employees face years of being at risk of financial ruin, tax fraud, and identity theft.  Some employees may already be victims.  Astanehe Law will obtain recompense for every affected employee.”

Although highly coveted and worth millions of dollars on the dark web, data breach repercussions may not come to light for years.  As a result, Volt’s affected employees now must constantly surveil their financial, tax, and personal records for years, which costs significant time and money.

Some Volt employees may already be fraud victims.

“I’m constantly worrying about my finances and identity being under attack.  My personal information continues to be at risk.  It’s discomforting,” said Alvin Yu, a former Volt employee, and lead plaintiff, “I worked for Volt to earn money, not lose it.”

Security experts characterize cyberattacks like these as the, “greatest threat to every company in the world.”  Hackers regularly target this precise type of data.  In 2018, there were 1,244 reported data breaches, which exposed 446.5 million sensitive records.

Astanehe Law is committed to furthering employee rights, including by ensuring employee data privacy compliance through litigation. In addition to obtaining redress for affected class members, Astanehe Law believes other companies will learn from Volt and evaluate their digital infrastructure to align their digital security with industry standards and the law.