A class action lawsuit has accused payroll and HR software services vendor ADP of allegedly surreptitiously recording online interactions with customers.
The suit alleges that ADP secretly recorded online interactions with its customers, violating the California Invasion of Privacy Act.
The plaintiff accuses ADP of intentionally engaging in chats with individuals in California through its website's chat box feature, which allegedly constitutes an illegal form of surveillance, allegedly using embedded code from Drift.com.
The lawsuit claims ADP and Drift allegedly glean from those allegedly recorded chats "a wide range of personal information from website users and consumers, including personal identifiers, device information, browser information, commercial information, operating system information, location details (such as GPS address and IP address); and from this, ADP may deduce additional demographic details like gender and age, various details about website usage, inferences, and other information."
"Visitors would be shocked and appalled to know that ADP secretly records those conversations and pays third parties to eavesdrop on them in real time to be 'targets' for non-descript mercantile campaigns," the lawsuit alleges. "ADP should not be permitted to acquire such extensive personal information from unsuspecting consumers who visit their website merely to make a purchase, such as upgrading a payroll system. This blatant disregard for consumer privacy is unacceptable and warrants appropriate scrutiny and intervention."
The plaintiffs seek to expand the action to include a class of at least thousands of additional plaintiffs, if not more.
The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified money damages, but which they estimate will climb into the millions of dollars, plus attorney fees and interest.