Data broker Whitepages has been sued by a retired West Virginia police officer in a class action after it allegedly published his home address, which constitutes a violation of the state's 2021 statute that prohibits the disclosure of addresses and phone numbers from active and retired law enforcement personnel, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
Despite the law, thousands of the state's law enforcement workers still had such details gathered and published by Whitepages without their consent, alleged the lawsuit. Such a development comes months after more than 100 class action lawsuits were filed by data removal service Atlas Data Privacy Corp. against data brokers claimed to have not responded to takedown requests concerning data from nearly 20,000 law enforcement officers in New Jersey. "Protecting at-risk public servants and their families from threats of violence and death is a compelling state interest of the highest order and we expect that more states will soon follow the example set by New Jersey and West Virginia," said an Atlas spokesperson.
