A Georgetown University graduate filed suit against the university Oct. 18 following its Oct. 16 and 17 data breach which exposed students’ and graduates’ personal information, including admissions, academic and financial aid details and social security numbers.
Mary Margaret “Maggie” Cleary (COL ’14), now a prosecutor in Virginia, filed a civil class-action lawsuit against the school, alleging its failure to protect her and other students’ and graduates’ sensitive information, failure to comply with regulations around the protection of that information and unlawful disclosure of her and others’ information.
Cleary, a deputy commonwealth’s attorney in Culpeper County, Va., an exurban county about 60 miles from Washington, D.C., filed the suit in her personal capacity, not in her capacity as a lawyer or prosecutor.
The university admitted Oct. 17 that the data breach occurred and ordered 29 people who accessed the personal information to delete any data they obtained.
Cleary’s lawsuit is a class-action suit, meaning that it seeks an unspecified amount of damages for her and all other members of the class of people whose data was made available during the breach, which includes many current Georgetown students and recent alumni.
Cleary’s complaint says she has suffered emotional damages and may suffer financial or other damages in the future as a result of the data breach.
“The Data Breach has caused the Plaintiff to suffer anxiety and stress from concerns that she faces an increased risk of financial fraud, identity theft, fraud and other types of monetary harm as a result of the stolen information,” the complaint reads. “As a result of the Data Breach, Plaintiff has been and will continue to be at a heightened and substantial risk of future identity theft and its attendant damages for years to come.”
A Georgetown University spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the law firm Lowey Dannenberg and Cleary’s lawyer, Anthony M. Christina, at the firm, said the firm would not comment on ongoing litigation.