A New York district court opinion is the latest addition to our watch of ongoing VPPA-related disputes, a notable decision on the issue of what exactly is a disclosure of “personally identifiable information” (PII) under the VPPA. Does PII refer to information which must, without more, link an actual person to actual video materials? Or are there circumstances where the disclosure of video viewing data and a unique device ID constitute disclosure of PII? In Robinson v. Disney Online, No. 14-04146 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 20, 2015), the plaintiff claimed that the Disney Channel app transmitted video viewing data and his Roku device serial number to a third-party analytics company for data profiling purposes each time he viewed a video clip, constituting a violation of the VPPA. In particular, the plaintiff did not argue that the information disclosed by Disney constituted PII by itself, but rather that the disclosed information was PII because the…
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