In an important opinion, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s ruling that plaintiffs in the ongoing Facebook biometric privacy class action have alleged a concrete injury-in-fact to confer Article III standing and that the class was properly certified. (Patel v. Facebook, Inc., No. 18-15982 (9th Cir. Aug. 8, 2019)). Given the California district court’s … Continue Reading
Last Friday, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in the long-awaited Rosenbach case that an individual does not have to plead an actual injury or harm, apart from the statutory violation itself, in order to have statutory standing to sue under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The Illinois Supreme Court ruling will allow procedural … Continue Reading
In a long-awaited decision, the Illinois Supreme Court issued its ruling in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp., 2019 IL 123186 (Ill. Jan. 25, 2019), on whether a person “aggrieved” by a violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) must allege some actual injury or harm beyond a procedural violation to have standing … Continue Reading
On November 20, 2018, the Illinois Supreme Court heard oral argument on whether a company’s technical violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) is sufficient to confer standing or whether a plaintiff must allege actual harm resulted from the violation. (Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp. et al., No. 123186) (prior decision). The Court’s … Continue Reading
Last December, we noted the continuing robust wave of Illinois biometric privacy suits. At that time, dozens of suits had been filed in Illinois state court against Illinois-based employers and other businesses alleging violation of Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which generally regulates the collection, retention, and disclosure of personal biometric identifiers and biometric … Continue Reading
Late last month, an Illinois appellate court reversed a lower court’s dismissal of biometric privacy claims against a tanning salon franchisee that had collected the plaintiff’s fingerprint to allow entry in its own salon and any L.A. Tan salon location nationwide. (Sekura v. Krishna Schaumburg Tan, Inc., 2018 IL App (1st) 180175 (Ill. App. Sept. … Continue Reading
An Illinois district court remanded to state court for lack of standing a biometric privacy suit brought by employees over the collection and storage of individuals’ fingerprints allegedly in violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, 740 ILCS 14/1 (“BIPA”). (Aguilar v. Rexnord, LLC, No. 17 CV 9019 (N.D. Ill. July 3, 2018)). This … Continue Reading
Last December, an Illinois appellate court, in the Rosenbach v. Six Flags decision (2017 IL App (2d) 170317 (Dec. 21, 2017)), dismissed biometric privacy claims lodged against theme park operators for collecting fingerprints to authenticate season-pass holders allegedly in violation of the notice and consent provisions of Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which regulates … Continue Reading
As discussed in past posts about the long-running Facebook biometric privacy class action, users are challenging Facebook’s “Tag Suggestions” program, which scans for and identifies people in uploaded photographs for photo tagging. The class alleges that Facebook collected and stored their biometric data without prior notice or consent in violation of the Illinois Biometric Information … Continue Reading
UPDATE: On June 14, 2019, the Ninth Circuit, in an unpublished two-page decision, affirmed the lower court’s dismissal of the case. This week, the District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed the Gullen putative class action asserting Illinois biometric privacy claims brought by “non-users” based on evidence that the social media site did not … Continue Reading
We have been closely following the legal and legislative developments relating to biometric privacy, and in particular, the flow of litigation under the Illinois biometrics privacy law. It was interesting to see how the Illinois law (as well as a similar Texas law) influenced Google’s offering of a new facial recognition feature on the Google … Continue Reading
As 2017 drew to an end, we noted the continuing flood of Illinois biometric privacy suits filed over the past year. There are literally dozens of cases pending, most in Illinois state courts, alleging violation of Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which regulates the collection, retention, and disclosure of personal biometric identifiers and biometric … Continue Reading
After noting the flood of Illinois biometric privacy suits in September, it appears that the flow of such suits remains robust. Dozens of suits have been filed in Illinois state court against Illinois-based employers and other businesses alleging violation of Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which generally regulates the collection, retention, and disclosure of … Continue Reading
This month, in one of the many recently-filed Illinois biometric privacy suits, a class action complaint alleging violations of Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) was lodged against Wow Bao, a restaurant chain, over its use of self-order kiosks that allow customers to use faceprints as a method to authenticate purchases. (Morris v. Wow Bao LLC, No. … Continue Reading
We have been writing about the biometric privacy legal landscape, which has thus far been dominated by the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). While there are a number of states that are considering bills modeled after BIPA, Washington has enacted a bill that takes a dramatically different approach. On May 16, 2017, HB 1493 … Continue Reading
Even though Washington passed its own biometric privacy law last month (HB 1493), and other states are currently debating their own bills, Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) is still the crux of biometric and facial recognition privacy-related litigation. Such suits have typically involved social media services, video game makers or businesses that collect biometric … Continue Reading
We’ve written extensively about the numerous lawsuits, dismissals and settlements surrounding the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The statute, generally speaking, prohibits an entity from collecting, capturing, purchasing, or otherwise obtaining a person’s “biometric identifier” or “biometric information,” unless it satisfies certain notice and consent and data retention requirements. The statute contains defined terms … Continue Reading
