Two more potential class action suits filed under Illinois biometrics law

Proposed class-action law suits have been filed under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) against both fingerprint door-lock maker U-Tec and the Chicago Loews hotel, Law360 reports.

The plaintiff in the U-Tec suite alleges the company never provided the required disclosures about how information would be stored, how long for, or how it would eventually be disposed of. U-Tec provides door locks and an associated smartphone app which can store up to 95 fingerprints, and the plaintiff alleges that the lack of legally required disclosure led him to chose a lock which could allow a criminal to enter his home in the case that U-Tec suffers a data breach, and that he would not have done so if provided with the necessary information.

The suit against Loews hotel was filed in federal court and, like most BIPA suits, has been brought by an employee, who alleges that the hotel never informed him that fingerprints collected as part of a time and attendance system would be shared with a third party, or how long it would be kept for.

A similar potential class action suit was filed against Loews was filed in state court earlier this year, which has been stayed, pending a decision by the Illinois Supreme Court in Rosenbach v. Six Flags, according to an attorney involved in the case. The State Supreme Court is expected to rule on what qualifies a plaintiff as “aggrieved” under BIPA.

Around the same time as the earlier suit against Loews hotel was announced, U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall said that notice and consent violations, without disclosure of the information, do not constitute injury under BIPA, though the court’s decision to throw out the suit was based on the pre-emptive authority of the collected bargaining agreement in the labor dispute.

A BIPA suit was filed against burger chain Wendy’s earlier this month.

Article Topics

Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA)  |  biometrics  |  data collection  |  data protection  |  legislation