Best Buy staff allegedly posted nude photographs of a woman online, after they downloaded them when they were hired to fix her computer.
Back in August 2011, Nicole March, who is a University of Alabama, student, took her laptop computer to Tuscaloosa’s Best Buy store in Alabama, for repair after she noticed that it was faulty.
She noted that there was an issue with the computer, and one of the gifted technicians, who works as part of Best Buy’s Geek Squad, then quickly fixed her device.
Ms March, who also worked part time at Best Buy at the time, was informed nine months later by a fellow employee that nude photos of her were now on the Internet.
Her lawsuit claims that an employee took the images straight from her computer, before uploading them, and also linking the photos on Pirate Bay, which is a file-sharing website.
She has reportedly been left “humiliated” and “devastated” by the incident, and she has maintained that they were taken for an art project that she was working on at the time, rather than for any sexual reasons.
The lawsuit states that the photos were part of her class work at university. Ms March was studying the human form at the institution at the time of the ordeal.
Her case states, “In her artistic endeavors and with an interest in the human body, plaintiff [Ms March] has, from time to time, had professional and privately made nude photographs of herself which she stored on her personal computer for private, personal and professional reference and use.”
Ms March then complained to the police, however they were unable to prosecute the Geek Squad member, while managers at the store were even able to identify the individual, but asked her not to ask about their identity.
Her lawsuit continued, “This conduct was utterly reprehensible and cannot be tolerated in a civilized society where a customer entrusts her computer to a service for repair and rescue only to have sensitive and private data, images, and information uploaded to public links for use by strangers and the public at large.”