Marriott faces High Court showdown over data hack

MARRIOTT International is being sued in the High Court for a massive data hack that affected 339m people.

Martin Bryant, 41, a technology journalist from Manchester, is claiming compensation on behalf of up to 7m guests of Starwood Hotels from England and Wales. Fraudsters harvested data including guests’ credit card details, dates of birth and passport numbers.

If the class action-style claim is successful the court will order compensation to be paid to every victim, including guests of the St Regis, Sheraton, Le Meridien and Four Points hotels.

The hack began in 2014 but Marriott International, which bought Starwood in 2016, only told customers in 2018.

Last year the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined it £99m saying it should have done more to make sure systems were secure. Bryant ‘hopes this case will raise awareness of the value of our personal data’. He said: ‘You’re powerless. It might end up being used for identity theft or fraud, and there’s nothing you can do about it. The fact is there should be recompense.’

Marriott declined to comment. Earlier this year Marriott said another 5m customer accounts had been compromised, via a franchise hotel. Data breaches occur at many companies – on Saturday hackers stole information from the passengers of cruise giant Carnival.

In May Easyjet said details of about 9m customers had been compromised. And last month the ICO announced a record £183m fine for British Airways after the details of about 500,000 customers were harvested.