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Commercial use of biometric data has dramatically increased in recent years: some software are now able to recognize physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, retinas, hand and facial geometry, as well as voices. This technology makes people’s life easier as their hand or voice may be enough to access their phone or bank account, and one single click […]

Commercial use of biometric data increased dramatically in recent years: some software are now able to recognize physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, retinas, hand and facial geometry, as well as voices. This technology makes people’s life easier as their hand or voice may be enough to access their phone or bank account, and one single click may […]

On April 1, 2015, Facebook received a class action complaint and demand for jury trial for having allegedly violated users’ privacy by collecting and using their biometric data. According to the complaint, through its “tag suggestions” program, Facebook scans all pictures uploaded by users and identifies any Facebook friends they may want to tag. Plaintiff […]

    On December 28, 2018, Google won summary judgment in a class action alleging that the company handles images in violation of the Illinois 2008 Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). According to the District Court, “plaintiffs have not suffered an injury sufficient to establish Article III standing and their claims are dismissed.” In a (putative) class […]

On February 25, 2019, an Illinois Senator introduced SB2134 to amend the Biometric Information Privacy Act (740 ILCS 14/1 et seq., BIPA) creating a  private right of action. The bill is currently in Committee. The majority of BIPA claims have been brought against businesses as class actions seeking statutory damages.   Synopsis Amends the Biometric […]

    On January 25, 2019, the Illinois Supreme Court found that data subjects do not need to allege a concrete injury in order to sue under the Biometric Information Privacy Act (Act) (740 ILCS 14/1 et seq., BIPA). Contrary to the appellate court’s view, the Illinois Supreme Court found that “actual injury or adverse […]

On February 27, 2017, an Illinois federal court denied Google’s motion to dismiss a claim alleging that Google handles images in violation of the Illinois 2008 Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). In a (putative) class action against Google Photos, plaintiffs alleged that the service collects, stores and uses- without informed consent and in violation of BIPA – the […]

On November 12, 2014, the Autorità Garante della Privacy (Italian Data Protection Authority) issued a decision together with guidelines on the processing of biometric data. The DPA clarified that “a biometric data is a personal data as it can always be considered to be “information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person” by having […]