ABSTRACT
John Lenz identifies and analyzes the specific obstacles hindering class actions’ widespread use as a means to enforce privacy rights. Lenz argues that the purported advantages of class actions appear to overcome many of the procedural difficulties associated with individual private law enforcement of privacy rights. However, privacy class actions tend to arise only under specific factual scenarios. Due to difficulties with conceptualizing common privacy harms across a class of plaintiffs, privacy class actions have been certified mostly in only a limited number of fact scenarios: a violation of personal health information, hacking or loss of a physical memory device, and unauthorized employee access. As such, class actions fail at their promised objectives in the privacy law sphere. In particular, three factors restrict the more widespread use of class actions to enforce privacy rights: the underdevelopment of substantive privacy law, the inherent individuality associated with privacy harms, and the economic incentives of plaintiff-side class action lawyers. Finally, the chapter discusses one way forward that would facilitate privacy class actions: reconceptualizing privacy harm.
