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IL Appellate Court: No Duty Exists to Safeguard SSNs for Purposes of a Negligence Claim

By InfoLawGroup LLP on February 03, 2011

InfoLawGroup recently discovered a new data breach case, one of the first that we are aware of in the United States, that dives deep into the issue of whether a common law duty exists to safeguard personal information. In Cooney, et. al v. Chicago Public Schools, et. al¸ an Illinois appellate court actually rendered a decision holding that no such duty exists under Illinois law. In this blogpost we take a closer look at the court's rationale for dismissing the plaintiffs' negligence claim, as well as the other interesting holdings of the court.