On October 14, a federal judge granted the final approval for a $63 million settlement in regard to the 2015 Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data breach, bringing an end to the seven-year-long lawsuit over one of the biggest publicly known and reported security failures by the Federal government.
U.S. district judge Amy Berman Jackson gave approval for the settlement to proceed in a fairness hearing, held at the U.S District Court for the District of Columbia. The judge described the approved terms to be “fair, reasonable, and adequate, and in the best interest of named and class members.”
OPM Data Breach, 2015
The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in June 2015 confirmed it has experienced a series of data breaches targeting personnel records.
Reportedly, about 22.1 million personal records were affected in the breach, including those pertaining to government employees, other individuals who had undergone background checks, and their family and friends.
The data breach is considered one of the largest breaches of government data in U.S. history. The information accessed unlawfully included personally identifiable information (PII) of victims, including their names, dates, place of birth, residential addresses, and Social Security numbers.
The cyber attack was carried out by state-sponsored threat actors working for the Chinese government.
Terms of the settlement
Prospective participants will still have until December 23 to join the lawsuit, after the final fairness hearing, following which the validity of each claim will be accessed.
Furthermore, payouts to the claimants are expected to take place in the first or second quarter of next year, assuming there are no appeals.
In accordance with the settlement terms, the prospective claimant is entitled to a minimum of $700 per claim, and a maximum of $10,000 per claim.
As per Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, the court ruling was a “significant victory for rank-and-file federal employees.”
“We look forward to continuing to educate our members whose personal information was compromised in this data breach about how they can take part in this settlement and receive the compensation they are due under the law,” Kelley said.
