FB pixel

Historic penalty decision in BIPA case shows the need to take biometric privacy seriously

Historic penalty decision in BIPA case shows the need to take biometric privacy seriously
 

Biometrics in one U.S. jurisdiction is now officially a live electrical wire dancing on the ground, ready to shock the unwary, and there appears to be no shortage of unwary companies in the state of Illinois.

The Illinois Supreme Court last week declined to revisit a previous decision that a company can be held liable for every biometric scan it conducts on anyone without their consent or without advising the subject how the data collected will be managed.

The state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act, passed in 2008, mandates that businesses wanting to use the biometrics of Illinois residents take special care of the data, which is a person’s only irreplaceable identifiers.

Companies globally profit from the identifiers without consent or compensation. And biometrics have been stolen, causing unmeasurable damage to individuals who are victimized. The courts have not been kind to some of these businesses.

The latest decision (No. 128004), in Cothron v. White Castle System could, as the defendant has warned, force a business out of business under the weight of the collective penalties. A judge had previously sided with the plaintiffs, but that decision was appealed to the state supreme court.

White Castle can appeal the decision no further because the United States Supreme Court doesn’t weigh in on state constitutional issues. There is some momentum behind an effort to defang BIPA with new legislation, but it is not clear how it would impact White Castle and other companies that have run afoul of the law.

The justices in the minority excoriated the majority, according to reporting by legal trade publication The National Law Review. There is no evidence that legislators approving BIPA wanted to create existential punishment for companies found guilty of violating the law.

Cothron v. White Castle bears on another significant BIPA case – Rogers v. BNSF Railway — that seemingly was already decided.

The judge last fall awarded $228 million in a class action. A truck driver sued the rail firm for taking his biometrics every time he drove onto the company’s property.

The plaintiffs say that the White Castle award means they should get more compensation because their award was figured per driver, not per scan.

The defendant had previously said it wants the penalty reduced because it was treated as being mandated and not discretionary.

As noted, there appear to be no shortage of unwary companies in Illinois when it comes to BIPA, and an analysis of privacy developments points to health care companies that have using Meta Platform’s Pixel software feature to collect information from people traversing their sites.

Whether Pixel is a new avenue for BIPA plaintiffs is not clear, but in reporting on people who claim their medical data was collected and shared, an article in the legal trade journal Law360 again makes the case – perhaps unwittingly — that some personal information, once out of a person’s control is forever available for others’ use.

Article Topics

 |   |   |   | 

Latest Biometrics News

 

Harmonized digital driving license in EU approved as part of driving reform package

The EU is getting closer to a harmonized mobile driver’s license (mDL) with the approval of a provisional deal on…

 

DARPA taps Aptima to bring media forensics to market amid deepfake surge

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a commercialization contract to Aptima, Inc. that marks a critical inflection…

 

Parsons secures sole source deal to equip U.S. Air Force with biometric kits

The U.S. Air Force Air has issued a notice of intent to award a sole-source contract to Parsons Corporation for…

 

Gov.uk Wallet ‘empowering the market,’ says Kyle, in big win for OSPs

After a tense few weeks, the UK government has released the working principles for the Gov.uk Wallet plan that has…

 

Biometrics integrations, identity intelligence improve financial services onboarding

Major integrations for Fourthline and BioCatch are expanding the reach of their biometric user onboarding and KYC technologies, as financial…

 

Pakistan introduces digital birth, death registration in health facilities

Pakistan has taken a decisive move to streamline birth and death registration by digitizing the process and making services available…

Comments

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Biometric Market Analysis

Most Viewed This Week

Featured Company

Biometrics Insight, Opinion

Digital ID In-Depth

Biometrics White Papers

Biometrics Events