Court Rules Airline Not Bound By Privacy Policy

guest · Jun 25, 2019

Court Rules Airline Not Bound By Privacy Policy
An airline’s privacy policy isn’t an enforceable contract and it can use customer data for any purpose, a California court has ruled
June 25, 2019
https://securityboulevard.com/2019/06/court-rules-airline-not-bound-by-privacy-policy/

If a company promises it will only use your data for one purpose and it will protect your data, then suffers a data breach because it failed to adequately protect your data, can you sue the company for breach of contract? Maybe not.

In other words, if the passenger provides personal data to Delta, the airline will use that data for specific, identified purposes. The contract states:

"The passenger recognizes that personal data has been given to carrier for the purposes of making a reservation, obtaining ancillary services, facilitating immigration and entry requirements, and making available such data to government agencies. [...]"

Does it mean that the airline can use the data only for those purposes? Nope. That’s not what the contract says. So while you specifically authorize the airline to use your data for the purposes mentioned, the court concluded that this doesn’t mean the airline can’t use it for, well, for any other unmentioned purpose.
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Except that Delta slipped into its privacy policy the words, “This Privacy Policy is not a contract and does not create any legal rights or obligations.” And to the federal court in California, those words made all the difference.

So if Delta fails to protect that data and suffers a data breach—well, it never promised it would protect the data. Even worse, the Contract of Carriage doesn’t specifically say that the airline can’t use the data for purposes other than those specified.
So, if you put the right disclaimer in a privacy policy, well, all bets are off. You can do whatever you want.
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mirimir · Jun 26, 2019

But there are also precedents that ToS are legally binding.

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Court Rules Airline Not Bound By Privacy Policy

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