On September 9, 2016, in Braitberg v. Charter Communications, Inc., the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that mere retention of a customer's personally identifiable information by a cable company is a procedural violation that does not amount to the concrete harm required to establish Article III standing under the recent Spokeo decision. ( (8th Cir. Sept. 9, 2016).

Alex Braitberg filed a putative class action against Charter Communications in which he alleged that Charter violated the Cable Communications Policy Act (Cable Act) by retaining his personally identifiable information, including his phone number, address, and social security number, after the termination of his account. Braitberg claimed that keeping this information after it was no longer required for business purposes violated his rights and those of putative class members under the Cable Act, which requires the destruction of this information. Charter moved to dismiss the case, arguing that Braitberg lacked Article III standing. The district court granted the motion, and Braitberg appealed.

The Eighth Circuit agreed that Braitberg lacked Article III standing. During the pendency of the appeal, the US Supreme Court held in Spokeo v. Robins that to have standing to sue under Article III, a plaintiff cannot merely claim a procedural violation of a statute, but must suffer an actual injury-in-fact (136 S. Ct. 1540 (2016)). Braitberg's allegation that Charter kept information longer than it should have was not enough to confer standing, because he did not allege that Charter disclosed the information to any other party or used the information in any harmful way. This lack of concrete and particularized harm was inadequate to confer Article III standing absent any showing of an injury, even though retaining the information may have violated the Cable Act.