Wells Fargo Accidentally Releases Trove of Data on Wealthy Clients<br />By SERGE F. KOVALESKI and STACY COWLEYJULY 21, 2017<br />When a lawyer for Gary Sinderbrand, a former Wells Fargo employee, subpoenaed the bank as part of a defamation lawsuit against a bank employee, he<br />and Mr. Sinderbrand expected to receive a selection of emails and documents related to the case.<br />But what landed in Mr. Sinderbrand’s hands on July 8 went far beyond what his lawyer had asked for: Wells Fargo had turned over — by accident,<br />according to the bank’s lawyer — a vast trove of confidential information about tens of thousands of the bank’s wealthiest clients.<br />Reached on Friday, a day after Ms. Turiano was made aware of the issue, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo Advisors, Emily Acquisto,<br />released the following statement: “Wells Fargo takes the security and privacy of our customers’ information seriously.<br />Based on the fairly narrow subpoena that his lawyer submitted — it sought communications about Mr. Sinderbrand’s employment<br />and compensation — there was no reason for the bank to turn over such information, especially without any redactions, Mr. Sinderbrand said.<br />“Wells Fargo has not identified what specific documents it asserts were inadvertently exposed.”<br />The disclosure is a data breach that potentially violates a bevy of state and federal consumer data privacy laws<br />that limit the release of personally identifiable customer information to outside parties.
