skip to main content
Charney Lawyers logo

Update

The appeals from the certification decision will be heard by the B.C. Court of Appeal in Vancouver on January 16-17, 2024.

Capital One Class Action is Certified

On June 3, 2022, the Supreme Court of British Columbia certified a national class action against Capital One, one the largest banks in the United States, for a cyber-attack in 2019 which resulted in a hacker gaining access to the confidential information of about six million Canadians including one million social insurance numbers.

The Class includes all Canadians (except residents of Québec) who applied for or were issued a Capital One credit card and who were notified by the defendants that their information was compromised in the Breach.

If your data was compromised in the Breach, then please go to the Charney web page for the class action and register on the class counsel registration database.

 Class Counsel are Charney Lawyers PC and Garcha and Company. You can read the court’s decision below.

460 KB

The Cyber Security Breach

On July 31, 2019, Capital One announced a massive data hack that compromised the personal data of about 6 million Canadians and corporations and exposed one million social insurance numbers.  The incident affected about 106 million North American credit card holders and applicants.

Between March 12 and April 21, 2019, a hacker extracted data from Capital One’s directories. The hacker gained access to the data through a misconfigured web application firewall on servers that Capital One rented to store credit card applications and other personal information.

As a result of the cyber security breach, the personal information of many Canadian consumers, customers, and small businesses who applied for credit card products from 2005 to 2019 has been intentionally accessed without their authorization.

Capital One has confirmed that the compromised data includes Canadian credit card application data and portions of credit card customer data, including approximately 1 million Canadian Social Insurance Numbers, credit scores, credit limits, balances, payment history, contact information, and fragments of transaction data from a total of 23 days during 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Press Release

For the press release, click here:  https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/capital-one-privacy-breach-class-action-894138210.html 

Capital One FAQ Page

For information on the breach released by Capital One, click here:  https://www.capitalone.ca/facts2019/ 

Capital One Privacy Breach Class Action Lawsuit

Charney Lawyers PC has commenced a national class action on behalf of all Canadians and Canadian Corporations who were notified their information was compromised in the breach described above. The plaintiff asserts that Capital One failed to adequately protect its customers’ information.

What additional steps can I take to protect myself against fraud and identity theft?

  1. Find out if your credit card application information was compromised, and if you are one of the 1 million people whose Social Insurance Number was compromised. You can call Capital One to speak with an agent, or you can wait for Capital One to notify you directly. Capital One will be contacting those affected by mail or email only. Capital One will not be contacting those affected by phone or text.
  2. Order a copy of your credit report from either of the credit bureaus in Canada, Equifax or TransUnion Canada. Typically, one report per year is free.
  3. Once you receive your reports, review them for suspicious activity, such as inquiries from companies you did not contact, accounts you did not open, and debts on your accounts that you did not authorize.
  4. Monitor your credit card accounts for unusual or suspicious activity that you do not recognize. Set up text or email alerts to keep track of activity on your accounts. Check your bank statements, online payment services like PayPal, and merchant accounts for unauthorized transactions.
  5. Request either Equifax or TransUnion to place a fraud alert on your credit report. The alert will stay for six years with either bureau.
  6. Capital One has stated that it will make free credit monitoring and identity theft insurance available to everyone affected. You should consider applying for it.
  7. You can ask for a new Social Insurance Number from Service Canada if you can prove that your Social Insurance Number was used fraudulently.

If I elect to apply for credit monitoring and/or credit insurance offered by Capital One, will this impact my status to register for the class action or participate in the class action?

No, you can still register and participate in the class action.

TransUnion’s Statement

For TransUnion’s statement about the breach and online credit monitoring, please click here: https://www.transunion.ca/capital-one-canada-cyber-incident

IMPORTANT NOTE:

The site is not designed to answer questions about your individual situation or entitlement. Do not rely upon the information provided on this website as legal advice in respect of your individual situation nor use it as a substitute for individual legal advice.

The information collected about potential class members will assist counsel in prosecuting the class action and assessing what damages were suffered by the class as a whole. Providing the information requested does not make you the client of Charney Lawyers. The court will ultimately decide who will be included as a class member.

This website will be updated from time to time to provide potential class members with information as it becomes available.