The notion that someone might become the victim of ID theft in future because of a data breach cannot be used as a basis for claims, courts have held.

One exception was in the Heartland case, where the company to settle claims stemming from several class-action lawsuits.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .

in Computerworld's Privacy Topic Center.