An interesting New York Times article last week posited that governments’ use of digital surveillance techniques for the COVID-19 response – such as the tracking of geolocation to gauge quarantine restrictions – would lead to...more
While Washington’s comprehensive data privacy bill (SB 6182) — inspired by California’s CCPA — died when legislators could not hammer out a compromise over enforcement mechanisms, the state legislature did reach agreement and...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
8/12/2019
/ Article III ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Fingerprints ,
IL Supreme Court ,
Injury-in-Fact ,
Personal Data ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Social Media ,
Standing ,
Statutory Violations
Senators Brian Schatz (D) and Roy Blunt (R) recently introduced S.847, the “Commercial Facial Recognition Privacy Act of 2019,” a bill that would, subject to certain important exceptions, generally prohibit the commercial use...more
3/26/2019
/ Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Consumer Privacy Rights ,
Covered Entities ,
Data Collection ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
IL Supreme Court ,
Personal Data ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Proposed Legislation
As discussed in past posts about the long-running Facebook biometric privacy class action, users are challenging Facebook’s “Tag Suggestions” program, which scans for and identifies people in uploaded photographs for photo...more
6/1/2018
/ Article III ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Class Certification ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Dormant Commerce Clause ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Photographs ,
Private Right of Action ,
Standing
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
This week, the District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed the Gullen putative class action asserting Illinois biometric privacy claims brought by “non-users” based on evidence that the social media site...more
4/6/2018
/ Article III ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Photographs ,
Standing ,
Summary Judgment
This past week, a California district court again declined Facebook’s motion to dismiss an ongoing litigation involving claims under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, 740 Ill. Comp Stat. 14/1 (“BIPA”),...more
3/5/2018
/ Article III ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Photographs ,
Spokeo v Robins ,
Standing ,
VPPA
We have been closely following the legal and legislative developments relating to biometric privacy, and in particular, the flow of litigation under the Illinois biometrics privacy law. It was interesting to see how the...more
With the flood of Illinois biometric privacy suits lodged against employers in recent months, and multiple biometric privacy suits against social media and other mobile platforms currently pending over the use of photo...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
9/28/2017
/ Attorney's Fees ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Collection ,
Data Retention ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Fingerprints ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Private Right of Action ,
Social Media ,
Written Consent
This week’s Apple X announcement was not more than a few hours old, and the questions began to come in. Apple’s introduction of Face ID facial recognition on its new phone – although already available in some form on several...more
9/15/2017
/ Apple ,
Biometric Information ,
COPPA ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Use Policies ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ,
iPhone ,
Mobile Apps ,
Mobile Privacy ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Spoofing
Even though Washington passed its own biometric privacy law last month (HB 1493), and other states are currently debating their own bills, Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) is still the crux of biometric and...more
6/13/2017
/ Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Fingerprints ,
Notice and Comment ,
Notice Requirements ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Supermarkets
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
3/3/2017
/ Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Google ,
Information Technology ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Photographs ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Social Media ,
Technology Sector
We’ve written extensively about the numerous lawsuits, dismissals and settlements surrounding the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The statute, generally speaking, prohibits an entity from collecting,...more
2/24/2017
/ Article III ,
Background Checks ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Retention ,
Data Security ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Parental Consent ,
Personal Data ,
Popular ,
Prior Express Consent ,
Privacy Concerns ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Retail Market ,
Retailers ,
Software ,
Standing ,
Technology ,
Technology Sector
For the second time in the past six months, a district court has dismissed a lawsuit alleging procedural and technical violations of the Illinois biometric privacy statute for lack of Article III standing. In Vigil v....more
2/3/2017
/ Article III ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Data Collection ,
Data Retention ,
Dismissals ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Software ,
Standing ,
Technology ,
Technology Sector ,
Video Games
With the session ending on August 31st, the California legislature is debating a bill (AB 83) that would expand data security requirements for businesses that maintain personal information of California residents to include,...more
We’ve previously blogged about the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) privacy multistakeholder process to address concerns associated with the emerging commercial use of facial recognition...more
6/24/2016
/ Best Practices ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Consent ,
Data Security ,
Data-Sharing ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Google ,
NTIA ,
Privacy Concerns ,
Shutterfly ,
Snapchat ,
Transparency
Late last week, the Illinois state senate considered an amendment tacked onto to an unrelated bill that would have revised the Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act, a law that has been the subject of much debate and...more
The District Court for the Northern District of California recently issued what could be a very significant decision on a number of important digital law issues. These include: the enforceability of “clickwrap” as compared...more
5/10/2016
/ Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Choice-of-Law ,
Clickwrap Agreements ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Collection ,
Enforceability ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Shutterfly ,
Terms of Use
As we have previously written about, there are several ongoing biometric privacy-related lawsuits alleging that facial recognition-based systems of photo tagging violate the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). ...more
As we have previously noted, there are several ongoing privacy-related lawsuits alleging that facial recognition-based systems of photo tagging violate the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The photo storage...more
As we have previously noted, Facebook has been named as a defendant in a number of lawsuits claiming that its facial recognition-based system of photo tagging violates the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). ...more
As discussed in a previous post on facial recognition technology, a putative class action has been filed against Facebook over the collection of “faceprints” for its online photo tagging function, Tag Suggestions. (See e.g.,...more
10/16/2015
/ Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Consent ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
Databases ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Injunctions ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Personal Data ,
Photographs ,
Popular ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Shutterfly ,
Statutory Damages
This week, a major self-regulatory initiative intended to address privacy concerns associated with facial recognition technology hit a significant stumbling block. Nine consumer advocacy groups withdrew from the National...more
6/24/2015
/ Biometric Information ,
Clickwrap Agreements ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Fair Use ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Informed Consent ,
NTIA ,
Opt-Outs ,
Popular ,
Prior Express Consent ,
Privacy Concerns ,
Privacy Disclosures ,
Privacy Policy ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Self-Regulatory Organizations ,
Social Media ,
Transparency ,
Young Lawyers