#WorkforceWednesday® - State Legal Trends: Crucial Changes for Employers - Employment Law This Week®
Biometric Litigation
Illinois Supreme Court Clarifies BIPA Violation Accruals, Opening the Door for “Annihilative” Damage
Podcast: BIPA Trends in 2022
Data Privacy Legislation, Part 2 (and bonus tips on teleworking from two law mamas who feel your pain!)
5 Key Takeaways | Biometrics: Identifying and Mitigating Legal Risks
The landmark $1.4 billion settlement reached by the state of Texas and a social media company to settle allegations that the company’s platform unlawfully scanned the faces of millions of users in Texas serves as a warning to...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in Zellmer v. Meta Platforms, Inc., on June 17, 2024, affirming dismissal of a putative class action filed under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy...more
Social media has played an oversized role in lawsuits under state and local biometric privacy laws, including especially the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). See, e.g., Thornley v. Clearview AI, Inc., 984...more
In one of the largest data privacy settlements ever, a California federal district court judge last week approved a $650 million settlement to be paid by Facebook to nearly 1.6 million Facebook users in Illinois. The...more
In a decision issued on May 6, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a plaintiff alleged a concrete injury sufficient to satisfy the Article III "injury-in-fact" requirement for standing when she...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Plaintiffs’ lawyers reached a landmark $550 million settlement in January 2020 in a lawsuit against Facebook by consumers in a class action brought under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (the...more
In the face of billions of dollars of potential liability at trial, social media giant, Facebook, opted for the finality of a class-wide settlement—to the tune of $550 million—reached with Illinois users complaining of...more
One decision, two far-reaching effects. This aptly describes the Supreme Court’s Jan. 21, 2020, decision to deny Facebook’s petition for certiorari in Patel v. Facebook....more
Seyfarth Synopsis: On January 29, 2020, Facebook announced that it had reached a settlement with plaintiffs in a class action brought under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (the “BIPA”) in the U.S. District...more
Facebook has agreed to pay $550 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit claiming that Zuck & Co.’s use of facial recognition technology violated Illinois’ biometric privacy law. Though the settlement is little more than “a...more
The rapid adoption of biometric technology—designed to measure unique human biological characteristics, like fingerprints, voiceprints, and hand or face scans—has led to a surge of consumer class actions alleging violations...more
The Ninth Circuit has issued its much-anticipated decision in a class action against Facebook involving alleged biometric privacy violations, affirming certification of a class. In Patel v. Facebook, the Northern District of...more
Recently, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that an Illinois class of Facebook users can pursue a class action lawsuit arising out of Facebook’s use of facial scanning technology....more
In January 2019, we reported on the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision, Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp., where the highest court in Illinois unanimously found that an individual need not allege (or show) an actual...more
Class action lawsuits alleging violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) continue to flood courts’ dockets. In a case against Facebook related to use of an alleged facial recognition technology in...more
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...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Following an opinion by the Illinois Supreme Court, the 9th Circuit will discuss the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act issue — whether the Act requires class plaintiffs to show that they suffered actual harm...more
We have written before about the issues presented by the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, 740 Ill. Comp Stat. 14/1 (“BIPA”). BIPA is still the only state biometric privacy statute with a private right of action. It...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In light of the uncertainties surrounding lawsuits alleging violations of the Illinois Information Biometric Privacy Act (“BIPA”), the Northern District of California has taken a firm position on a...more
Last week, a federal district judge in California shot down Facebook, Inc.’s second attempt to dismiss a putative class action alleging that its facial recognition software violates the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act (BIPA)....more
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...more
In 2008, Illinois enacted the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), the first state statute to regulate businesses’ use of biometric identifiers and biometric information (BII). 740 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 14/1, et seq....more
We’ve closely followed the numerous biometric privacy disputes and legislative developments surrounding the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which precludes the unauthorized collection and storing of some...more
More than a decade ago Steve Spielberg’s Minority Report contemplated a future in which facial recognition would be ubiquitously used for targeted advertising. Now, a California court will decide whether to dismiss a...more
Snapchat, the popular “disappearing image” messaging social media corporation, was free to enjoy this past Labor Day weekend due to a voluntary dismissal of a biometric privacy class action. On August 30, 2016, the class...more