When a journalist from Washington’s City News published the video rental store history of Ronald Reagan’s Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in 1987, they could hardly have guessed nearly four decades later the story would be the genesis for a slew of class actions.

Nor could Australian companies, who have invested millions to comply with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act, fathom they could be the target of litigants for alleged breaches of a 36-year-old law in an age when the video store has been wiped out. The Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) was passed by US Congress in outrage over the Bork story to stop the publication of personal video rental records.