Apple Defeats Mega Lawsuit Accusing It Of Violating American Privacy Laws By Retaining iTunes Video Records

Apple has come out on top of a lawsuit that accused the iPhone maker of violating privacy laws in New York and Minnesota.

The laws spoke about how the tech giant was retaining video records streamed by its users through iTunes.

This decision was published this week where Judge Haywood Gilliam from California’s District Court added how such state laws don’t give citizens of these states permission to file cases regarding such discerning topics.

This recent decision stems from a case that was filed in the previous year by another resident who accused the tech giant of having a huge file in the form of a digital dossier. This entails data collected from millions that make use of its offerings in these respective states.

Moreover, the duo was seen alleging how there were state laws in place that prevent firms from doing such things as video viewing is deemed to be a confidential practice. The citizens also alleged that such records linked to video viewing need to be destroyed as soon as possible to prevent them from being used. However, Apple was not doing that.

Apple has been maintaining and storing all of its clients’ names, contact details, billing information, and credit card numbers too which come under the sensitive information category.

But Apple has urged the citizens to drop the filings several times as they refuted the claims and called them baseless. Moreover, they said that they only had the right to sue over claims regarding the disclosure of video rental records.

As far as Apple is concerned, there has never been any court that recognized such private rights of citizens linked to wrongful retention of their video records. These were a part of the filings it made in response to the allegations submitted last year.

The judge did agree with everything that Apple was saying and did not think twice before dismissing the lawsuit with prejudice. And that meant no other allegations would be brought against the firm in this regard again.

It’s interesting to note how Apple is not the sole firm facing such a lawsuit in terms of retaining these kinds of video records. Both Google as well as Amazon were caught in the middle of such cases linked to class action complaints. And as of right now, such cases are still pending in status.