Madison Square Garden has escaped multiple recent lawsuits tied to a reported data breach, although the attorney behind one dropped suit tells Front Office Sports that another case could be in the cards because of “deeply disturbing systemic privacy violations.”
The hack reportedly accessed sensitive visitor data from up to 26 million people collected through controversial surveillance and facial-recognition systems used at the Knicks home arena. A few days after the Knicks beat the Spurs in Game 5 of the NBA Finals to take home their first championship in 53 years, Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. was hit with a proposed class action lawsuit stemming from the breach.
Four additional, separate suits were soon filed, totaling five against either MSG Entertainment, MSG Sports, or both (MSG Entertainment owns and operates the arena while MSG sports owns the Knicks and Rangers). Each suit alleged that MSG hasn’t adequately addressed the hack, and claimed the company collects more personal identifying information about event attendees than necessary.
Over the last two weeks, four of the suits have been voluntarily dropped, according to the court dockets. Each dismissal was entered without prejudice, which means the plaintiffs can refile the same claims again if they want. No details were provided in court filings for why the four suits were dropped. In the fifth suit, the judge recently scheduled an initial pretrial conference for Oct. 22.
