A tech company that specializes in software to help blood plasma donation facilities manage their donors has become one of the latest targets of a class action under Illinois’ biometrics privacy law.
On Feb. 4, lawyers with the firms of Edelson P.C., of Chicago, and the Fish Law Firm, of Naperville, filed a class action complaint in Cook County Circuit Court against Boston-based Haemonetics Corp.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of named plaintiff Mary Crumpton, identified only as a resident of Illinois.
The lawsuit centers on Haeomonetics’ eQue software system.
The complaint accuses Haemonetics of allegedly violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) in the way it collects and stores fingerprint scans from people donating blood plasma at plamsa donation sites – known as plasmapheresis facilities - in Illinois.
At the time of their first plasma donation, donors are typically required to scan their fingerprint, into systems like Haemonetics’ eQue, as a way of verifying their identity each time they donate.
According to the complaint, Crumpton was among the donors who scanned her fingerprint at a plasma donation site operated by Octapharma in 207 and 2018. Octapharma is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Crumpton, with lawyers from the Edelson firm, filed a similar class action against Octapharma for its use of fingerprint scanners in 2019. That action remains pending in Chicago federal court.
The class action asserts Haemonetics not only provides its fingerprint scanning and donor management system to its plasma collection clients, but it also “itself collects, stores, and uses donor biometric data” through eQue.
The complaint asserts Haemonetics does so, even though it allegedly failed to obtain written authorization from plasma donors before collecting their fingerprint scans; failed to “properly inform (donors) in writing of the specific purpose and length of time for which the fingerprints were being collected, stored and used;” and did not provide donors with a “publicly available retention schedule and guidelines for permanently destroying (donors’) fingerprints.”
The complaint alleges those actions violated the BIPA law.
The complaint seeks to expand the action to include anyone who scanned their fingerprints at plasma donation sites in Illinois on scanners supplied by or operated by Haemonetics.
The complaint estimates that could include at least “hundreds” of people.
Under the BIPA law, plaintiffs can seek damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation. In other cases, individual violations can be defined to include each time a fingerprint is scanned.
The complaint seeks those damages, as allowed by the law, plus attorney fees.
Crumpton is represented in the action by attorneys J. Eli Wade-Scott, Benjamin H. Richman and Schuyler Ufkes, of Edelson P.C., and David Fish and John Kunze, of the Fish Law Firm.