Proposed Class Action Alleges Liberty Mutual Website Violates Pa. Law

Liberty Mutual Insurance is the target of a proposed class action alleging that the company uses spyware on its website that violates Pennsylvania’s electronic surveillance law.

The suit claims the company uses “session replay” spyware, namely Clicktale and Datadog, to intercept electronic computer-to-computer data communications. The plaintiffs allege that the insurer, without their consent, captured and recorded “everything” they did on Liberty Mutual’s web pages, including “what they searched for, what they looked at, the information they inputted, and what they clicked on.”

According to suit, unlike typical website analytics services that provide aggregate statistics, the session replay technology utilized by Liberty Mutual is intended to record and play back individual browsing sessions, “as if someone is looking over a [visitor’s] shoulder” when using the website.

The technology also permits companies to view the interactions of visitors on their website in real-time and produce a detailed profile for each visitor to the site, according to the complaint.

Plaintiffs also say they never consented and were never alerted to the interception of their electronic communications by the insurer and they were never given the option to opt out of the recording.

Liberty Mutual declined to comment on the lawsuit.

The suit was filed in federal court in Pennsylvania and alleges violations of the state’s Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act (WESCA), which prohibits the interception and use of any any wire, electronic, or oral communication.

The suit seeks, at a minimum, $1,000 in damages for each violation, which, when aggregated among the estimated class of more than 5,000, exceeds $5,000,000. It also seeks an order certifying the class and punitive damages.