Bank Forces Google to Shut Down a GMail Account After Data Breach

When a Wyoming bank’s employee unwittingly created a large data breach, an innocent GMail user paid the price. It all began when a clerk at Rocky Mountain Bank sent an email containing nearly 1500 customer names, addresses, SSN numbers and loan information to a random GMail address. It’s not known who the email was actually intended for nor how it got sent to the wrong one. Perhaps it was a typo. When the accidental breach was discovered a second email was sent to the address asking that the first email be destroyed and that the owner of the account contact them. They got no response, so the bank contacted Google and demanded the user’s information be turned over to them. Google (and rightly so) refused saying they did not honor such requests unless accompanied by a court order. Rocky Mountain bank went to court and not only got that court order, but they took it a step further and asked that the account be shut down. The judge agreed and ordered Google to do so, so now a completely innocent person, who probably ignored both emails thinking they were spam or a phishing scam, has lost their email account.

Google says it has been able to resolve the situation to the bank’s satisfaction and they have filed a motion to dismiss the case. But until the judge approves it they are barred from giving that innocent user their account back.

The bank hasn’t had any comment. One can hope they will become a little more tech savvy and also that they will apologize to the GMail user their employee’s blunder so inconvenienced.