Watch the video for the explanation or see below for the spolier.
SPOLIER ALERT!
In The Travelers Indemnity Company of America v. Portal Healthcare Solutions, L.L.C., No. 14-1994 (4th Cir. Apr. 11, 2016), the Fourth Circuit held that Travelers was required to cover Portal’s data breach under its Commercial General Liability (CGL) Policy’s Advertising provision. The court’s reasoning was based on the unique facts of this case where Portal had inadvertently placed individuals’ private information on an unsecured server that made it accessible to anyone on the Internet, without any access restrictions.
The court found that making this information available on the Internet was a “publication” of such information and, therefore, was covered by the Advertising provision in the policy which covered the (1) “electronic publication of material that … gives unreasonable publicity to a person’s private life” or (2) “electronic publication of material that … discloses information about a person’s private life.”
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Shawn Tuma (@shawnetuma) is a business lawyer with an internationally recognized reputation in cybersecurity, computer fraud and data privacy law. He is a Cybersecurity & Data Protection Partner at Scheef & Stone, LLP, a full-service commercial law firm in Texas that represents businesses of all sizes throughout the United States and, through its Mackrell International network, around the world.
