The California consumer protection lawyers at Tauler Smith LLP recently secured an important pre-trial win in a trap & trace lawsuit against Trane Technologies. The Plaintiff in the case is a California resident who filed a civil complaint against Trane Technologies, accusing the air conditioning & heating company of violating the Trap and Trace Law contained in the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA). The Defendant filed a demurrer and attempted to get the case dismissed before trial. Now the Los Angeles County Superior Court has issued a ruling against the demurrer and in favor of the California consumer represented by Tauler Smith LLP.
For more information about the online consumer privacy lawsuit against Trane Technologies, keep reading.
Lawsuit: Trane Technologies Shared Website Visitors’ Personal Data with TikTok
Trane Technologies Company, LLC is an international air conditioning & heating distributor that specializes in climate-controlled technology geared toward reducing consumers’ carbon footprint. Their focus is on developing climate control solutions that involve heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC), and refrigeration systems. Information about the products and services offered by Trane Technologies – including air conditioner units for both residential and commercial purposes – can be found on several websites operated by the company.
The Plaintiff in this case filed a civil suit in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles. The lawsuit alleges that the personal information of website visitors was collected by Trane Technologies and then transmitted to social media platform TikTok, which is currently owned and operated by the Chinese government and has been deemed a serious natural security risk by the United States government.
How Does the TikTok Software Work?
According to the lawsuit filed in L.A. Superior Court, Trane Technologies has partnered with TikTok to embed sophisticated software on its landing page. This TikTok Software allegedly allows Trane Technologies to learn the location, source, and identity of consumers who happen to land on the company’s website.
So, how does it work? The TikTok Software allegedly deploys a de-anonymization process to identify site visitors by using electronic impulses generated from their computers, phones, or other electronic devices. More specifically, the TikTok Software utilized by Trane Technologies allegedly runs code or “scripts” on the company’s website to send user details to TikTok. This allows Trane Technologies to gather confidential information about website visitors, including their device and browser information, geographic information, referral tracking, and URL tracking.
Consumer Data Collection Without Consent
Trane Technologies has been accused of collecting consumer data from website visitors without consent. When the Plaintiff visited the Trane Technologies website, his personal identifying information was allegedly accessed via embedded TikTok Software without his consent. This would constitute a very serious violation of California’s Trap and Trace Law, which is codified in Cal. Penal Code § 638.51 of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA). The digital privacy law prohibits companies from intercepting information during a communication without the consent of the communicators.
Los Angeles Court Denies Demurrer: Invasion of Privacy Lawsuit Against Trane Technologies Can Proceed
Trane Technologies attempted to get the trap & trace claim dismissed before trial by filing a demurrer, challenging the Plaintiff’s complaint on the grounds that the complaint was purportedly insufficient. A demurrer is functionally similar to a “motion to dismiss.” In its demurrer filing, Trane Technologies argued that the Plaintiff’s lawsuit should be thrown out due to failure to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action under the California Trap and Trap Law.
Defendant Trane Technologies presented five (5) arguments to the court in support of its demurrer motion:
- The Trap & Trace Statute does not apply to website visits alone because visiting a website does not constitute a “communication” or a “trap and trace device” under the law.
- The Plaintiff consented to the collection of his personal information.
- The Plaintiff lacks standing to sue in this case because he failed to allege a specific, concrete injury suffered as a result of the invasion of privacy by Trane Technologies.
- The lawsuit fails to allege facts showing unlawful conduct in the state of California, and the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) does not apply outside the state.
- The Plaintiff’s unclear status as a TikTok user means that the lawsuit should be dismissed.
The court rejected all of the Defendant’s arguments and ruled against the demurrer action. According to the court, Section 638.51 of California’s Trap and Trace Law explicitly prohibits the use of both pen registers and trap and trace devices, which are defined as “devices or processes that record or capture dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information from a wire or electronic communication.” The court further noted that in order to state a valid claim under § 638.51, the Plaintiff merely needs to allege that the Defendant installed and used either a pen register or a trap & trace device without first obtaining a court order to do so.
Website Communications Are Trap & Trace Devices
The Los Angeles Superior Court rejected the Defendant’s first argument and found that the Plaintiff sufficiently alleged that the TikTok Software utilized by Trane Technologies does, in fact, fall within the plain meaning of a “trap and trace” device as defined under Cal. Penal Code § 638.50.
Section 638.50(c) of the statute defines a “trap and trace device” as “a device or process that captures the incoming electronic or other impulses that identify the originating number or other dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information reasonably likely to identify the source of a wire or electronic communication, but not the contents of a communication.”
Further, § 629.51(a)(2) of the statute defines an “electronic communication” as “any transfer of signs, signals, writings, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectric, or photo-optical system.”
The court stated that the Plaintiff’s allegations that Trane Technologies unlawfully gathers site visitors’ personal information and sends the data to TikTok is sufficient to state a cause of action under the California Trap & Trace Law. As such, the trap & trace lawsuit can move forward.
No Consent for Data Collection by Trane Technologies
The court also rejected the Defendant’s second argument that Trane Technologies should be exempted from the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) because the Plaintiff somehow consented to the collection of his personal information.
In its ruling on the demurrer motion, the court noted the Defendant’s allegation that the Plaintiff is supposedly a professional litigant who seeks out websites that violate consumer privacy rights. The court said that, even if true, this would not mean that the Plaintiff consented to Trane Technologies’ use of a trap and trace device to collect consumers’ private information. The court also emphasized the Plaintiff’s allegation that the collection of users’ personal data begins automatically “the moment a user visits the website,” which would make it impossible for a site visitor to provide any kind of consent.
California Consumer Has Standing to Sue
The court rejected the Defendant’s third argument that the case should be dismissed because the Plaintiff failed to allege that he suffered any injury resulting from his visit to the Trane Technologies website. The court strongly disagreed with this argument because the lawsuit alleges that the TikTok Software used by Trane Technologies collects data from every visitor of the company’s website.
California’s Privacy Laws Apply to In-State Residents
The court quickly slapped down the Defendant’s fourth argument that the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) should not apply in this case because the Trane Technologies website is operated outside California. The court said that since the Plaintiff was located in California when he accessed the Defendant’s website, the wrongdoing occurred in California. This means that California’s privacy laws are applicable in the case.
TikTok Users Can File Trap & Trace Claims
Finally, the court rejected the Defendant’s convoluted argument that the Plaintiff’s possible status as a user of TikTok means that he already consented to the collection of his information by third parties. The Defendant suggested that if the Plaintiff was a TikTok user, then he affirmatively consented to the collection of his personal information; and if the Plaintiff was not a TikTok user, then he suffered no harm because the data transmitted by Trane Technologies to TikTok would be meaningless.
The court rejected the Defendant’s argument, stating that any consent the Plaintiff may or may not have provided to TikTok’s own platform would have to be determined at a later stage in the legal proceeding. At this point, declared the court, it is sufficient for the Plaintiff to have alleged that the privacy violation stems from Trane Technologies’ unilateral deployment of tracking code to capture and transmit user data without consent.
Contact the Los Angeles Consumer Protection Attorneys at Tauler Smith LLP
California has some of the strongest consumer privacy laws in the country, providing state residents with vigorous protections against invasions of privacy. If you reside in California and you visited any website that collected your data without consent, you may be able to bring a lawsuit to recover substantial monetary damages.
The Los Angeles consumer protection lawyers at Tauler Smith LLP have extensive experience representing plaintiffs in these types of lawsuits. We have filed consumer privacy claims in both state and federal courts. Call 310-590-3927 or email us today.
