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Let's say a private e-mail address used by a senior citizen (in WA) is provided to a company (also operating in WA). Assume the address is unique to the citizen's use of the company's services. No other company has been provided with the same e-mail address, with the intent of identifying sources of abuse.

Later, the senior citizen begins receiving an increasing stream of messages that appear to be targeted phishing because they are addressed to the special address given only to the one company.

Would negligent release of PII be a cause of action if causes a senior citizen to be subject to a series of attempted financial fraud?

Assume Washington State law might apply. I've read the WA elder abuse law are stronger than the average. Would actual financial loss through a scam be required to succeed in pressing this matter?

Burt_Harris
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The causal link between the existence of spam and how the email address is used is going to be the tenuous part of the argument. Virtually all email addresses receive a certain amount of spam so who is to say that the fact that the email is used for work is the reason for increased spam, the spam could just as easily originated from a business card that the old person handed out.

I do think that the hypothetical is highly unlikely to ever happen as it is an exceptionally poor business practice to allow a person to use a personal email address for business purposes. Any business worth its salt would only allow employees to use a business email address that the business owns and controls.

Neil Meyer
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