AdultFriendFinder Data Breach Lawsuit Goes to Arbitration

A putative class action lawsuit concerning hookup service AdultFriendFinder.com (AFF) has been moved to arbitration this week.

The case sees plaintiff Alejandro Gutierrez attempting to hold AFF accountable for a 2016 data leak which allegedly exposed the personal information of 339 million users.

Gutierrez initially requested a trial by jury, arguing in legal documentation that the incident was the second-largest online breach this century (Yahoo leaked some 500 million email addresses in 2014).

AFF, which advertises itself as “the World’s Largest Sex & Swinger Community”, hosts a large amount of sensative data.

The case is comparable to the 2015 Ashley Madison data breach, which saw some 300 GB of user data exposed online. The infidelity site paid over $10 million in the wake of the hack.

All adult sites operating in the UK will soon be required to carry out age verification checks on users.

The legislation, known colloquially as the ‘porn block’, is set to be implemented on 15 July 2019 following a series of delays.

A failure to carry out “robust” checks could result in websites being inaccessible on UK devices.

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