New Hampshire Senate pushes back Biometric Information Protection Bill

The New Hampshire Senate has pushed back on the Biometric Information Protection Bill that the House passed last year that would ban companies from using biometric information such as fingerprints and DNA for unreasonable purposes customers have not given consent for, the Associated Press reports.

Lawmakers in New Hampshire voted Wednesday that the bill needs further study before it can be widely enforced.

Under the Biometric Information Protection Bill, individuals could sue companies based on New Hampshire’s Consumer Protection Act.

The bill defines biometric information as “an individual’s physiological, biological, or behavioral characteristics,” including iris, retina, face and fingerprints, voice recordings, sleep, health or exercise data that could be used to identify a person.

A number of institutions including the New Hampshire Business and Industry Association protested against the bill, claiming the definition is vague and compliance standards are not objective.
Concerned about privacy rights, Sen. Jon Morgan, D-Brentwood, said the bill needs further evaluation because it can be voted on again.

So far, a number of companies face legal action under the Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act, including Facebook, WeWork and Amazon. The law has been in effect for almost 12 years.

Following a flood of class action lawsuits alleging biometric privacy law violations in Illinois , the law was closely examined in a guest post for Biometric Update by by Ana Tagvoryan, Jeffrey N. Rosenthal and David J. Oberly, attorneys at Blank Rome LLP.

Article Topics

biometric data  |  biometrics  |  data protection  |  legislation  |  New Hampshire  |  privacy  |  United States