Penalty Amount
$975,000
Consumers Affected
45,000
New York Attorney General Letitia James reached a $975,000 settlement with Root Insurance Company over a data breach that exposed the personal information of approximately 45,000 New York residents. The breach, discovered in January 2021, stemmed from Root’s inadequate data security measures, including unencrypted driver’s license numbers in quote PDFs and insufficient controls against automated attacks. In addition to the monetary penalty, Root must implement enhanced data security measures including a comprehensive information security program, data inventory, and monitoring systems.
Root must pay $975,000 in penalties. The company is also required to implement and maintain a comprehensive information security program, develop a data inventory of private information with reasonable safeguards, implement reasonable authentication procedures for access to private information, and maintain a logging and monitoring system with policies to alert on suspicious activity.
In-house legal teams, particularly those in the insurance industry or companies that collect consumer driver’s license information via online tools, should review vendor agreements for web development, data security, and cloud hosting services to ensure they mandate adequate risk assessments of public-facing applications, prohibit plaintext storage of sensitive PII (including driver’s license numbers), and require controls to prevent automated attacks. Data processing and security vendor contracts should also include requirements for maintaining comprehensive data inventories, implementing reasonable authentication procedures for private information access, and deploying logging/monitoring systems with suspicious activity alerting. Additionally, contracts governing online consumer quoting tools should include specific security standards to prevent vulnerabilities like unauthorized prefilling of sensitive data.
Entity
Root Insurance Company
Also known as: Root
Industry
InsuranceOfficial Press Release
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2025/attorney-general-james-secures-975000-auto-insurance-company-over-data-breach
root insurance company assurance of discontinuance 2025
https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/settlements-agreements/root-insurance-company-assurance-of-discontinuance-2025.pdf
New York Attorney General Enforcement Page
https://ag.ny.gov/press-releases
"secured $975,000 in penalties from Root, an auto insurance company"
"$975,000 in penalties"
"March 20, 2025"
"approximately 45,000 New Yorkers"
"OAG found that Root failed to perform adequate risk assessments on its public-facing web applications, did not identify the plain text exposure of consumer personal information, and employed insufficient controls to thwart automated attacks"
"Root’s system exposed full, plaintext driver’s license numbers in a PDF generated at the end of the auto quote process"
$8.0M
New York Attorney General Letitia James secured an $8 million settlement from VGW Holdings Pty. Ltd. and its affiliates for unlawfully operating online sweepstakes casinos — Chumba Casino, Global Poker, and Luckyland Slots — that allowed New Yorkers to play casino games with virtual coins exchangeable for cash or prizes. The OAG's June 2025 cease and desist letter stopped the company from offering virtual coin gambling in New York, and Governor Hochul signed a formal ban on sweepstakes casinos into law in December 2025. Under the settlement, VGW will pay $8 million in disgorgement, penalties, and costs; note this is an illegal-gambling enforcement action rather than a privacy matter, so no privacy violation taxonomy categories apply.
$824K
New York Attorney General Letitia James secured a settlement with 425 Marcy, LLC and its principal Ezra Unger over the unlawful pre-sale of condominium units at 427 Marcy Avenue in Williamsburg before the required Martin Act offering plan was accepted for filing, and the misuse of $6.715 million in buyer down payments that were never placed in escrow. Unger agreed to repay residential buyers their down payments with interest or provide purchase credits, pay up to $824,000 in penalties, and is barred from selling securities in New York for six years. Note: this is a real estate offering-plan/escrow enforcement action rather than a data privacy matter; 'notice_failure' is the closest available taxonomy mapping (selling without the required offering plan disclosures).
New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a consumer alert (not an enforcement action) warning New Yorkers about scammers exploiting confusion from recent federal changes to student loan repayment programs, including the elimination of the SAVE plan and phase-out of income-driven repayment plans. The alert describes common scam tactics — upfront fees, false guarantees of loan forgiveness, manufactured urgency, demands for powers of attorney, and requests for federal student aid (FSA) credentials — and urges consumers to report scams to the OAG. No company was named, no violation was alleged against a specific entity, and no penalty was imposed.
New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a consumer alert warning borrowers about scammers exploiting recent federal changes to student loan repayment programs, including the elimination of the SAVE plan and phase-out of income-based plans. The alert provides tips for borrowers, including refusing upfront fees, never granting powers of attorney to unknown parties, and never sharing Federal Student Aid login credentials. No specific company was named and no penalties or remedies were imposed; this is an advisory alert, not an enforcement action.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, joined by 21 other states and the FTC, sued Amazon for secretly overcharging its advertising customers more than $20 billion by submitting fake second-place bids to inflate ad auction prices since 2018. More than 1.2 million advertisers, including hundreds of thousands of small businesses, were allegedly overcharged. The coalition seeks a court order stopping the scheme plus penalties, restitution, and damages.
$17.1B
Attorney General James and a bipartisan coalition of 50 other attorneys general secured a landmark settlement with Meta Platforms, Inc. (Meta) worth up to $17.1 billion to address the company's harmful and addictive features targeting minors on Facebook and Instagram. The settlement requires Meta to implement significant changes, including age verification, time limits for minors, restrictions on notifications, and options to opt out of algorithmic feeds, along with monetary payments to states for mental health and education programs.