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courts in recent months have been more willing to consider whether an increased risk ofharm is sufficient to confer Article III standing under the U. S. Constitution in certaininstances (e.g., where some of the stolen data appeared on the internet). 54The consumer class action arising from the Target breach provides a helpful example ofhow some courts have recently handled motions to dismiss plaintiffs” data breachclaims for lack of standing. Following the Target breach, consumers filed over 100lawsuits, which were largely consolidated in federal Court in the District of Minnesota.Target moved to dismiss the Consolidated Class Action Complaint in its entiretyarguing, inter alia, that the plaintiffs lacked standing because they failed to plead injurysufficiently. 55To that end, Target argued either the claimed damages could not befairly traced to the data breach or the complaining plaintiff had otherwise already beenreimbursed for the unauthorized charge.The Court, giving arguably short-shrift to these arguments, held Target was trying tohold the plaintiffs to too high a standard at the motion to dismiss phase, and that theplaintiffs had adequately pled standing under Article III:54 Thad Behrens, Ron Breaux, Randall E. Colson, Daniel Gold, David Siegal, Micah Skidmore, LeslieThorne, John Podvin, Kenya Woodruff, Emily Westridge Black, Gavin George, Timothy Newman,Jennifer Kreick, Key Developments in Privacy and Data Security, Haynes and Boone, LLP, Oct. 2014,at 12; see also In re Adobe Sys., Inc. Privacy Litigation, No. 5:13-cv-5226 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 4, 2014)(stating that “[u]nlike in Clapper, where respondents’ claims that they would suffer future harm rested ona chain of events that was both ‘highly attenuated’ and ‘highly speculative,’ the risk that Plaintiffs’personal data will be misused by the hackers who breached Adobe’s network is immediate and veryreal” where some of the plaintiffs’ data already surfaced on the internet); see also In re Sci. ApplicationsInt’l Corp (SAIC) Backup Tape Data Theft Litig., No. 12-347, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64125 (D.D.C. May9, 2014) (finding two of thirty one plaintiffs were able to establish standing where one plaintiff alleged hereceived a letter regarding a loan he never applied for and another plaintiff claimed she receivedunsolicited phone calls concerning a certain condition noted in her medical records).55 See In re: Target Corp. Customer Data Breach Sec. Litig., No. 0:14-md-02522, Dkt No. 81, at *1-4(Dist. Minn. Dec. 18, 2014) (Memorandum and Order).March 6, 2015 28 © 3-6-2015 ALFA International Business Litigation P.G.