A Lemont mail production company was accused of illegally collecting, using and storing biometric data by a class action lawsuit filed on Feb. 19 in Cook County Circuit Court.
The class is represented by plaintiff Anthony Rodriguez, a Romeoville native who worked as a mail sorter at Jetson Mailers briefly in 2020. Rodriguez states that there are at least 100 other Jetson Mailers employees eligible for the class.
Jetson Mailers requires employees such as plaintiff to place their fingerprints on a scanner to be clocked in and out when beginning and ending work shifts.
The lawsuit asserts the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) requires written consent from employees before requiring them to scan their fingerprints or other biometric identifiers to verify their identity when punching the clock. BIPA also requires companies using biometric timekeeping to offer publicly available policies for retention and destruction of data, and provide various notices to employees.
Rodriguez alleges that Jetson Mailers violated BIPA by not offering any publicly available policies and did not obtain written consent by the employees to have their data collected.
The class charged Jetson Mailers with violations of BIPA and seek damages plus litigation fees for each violation. Negligent violations of BIPA are subject to $1,000 in damages per occurrence and intentional violations are subject to $5,000.
The plaintiff is represented by attorneys Alejandro Caffarelli and Katherine Stryker, of the firm of Caffarelli & Associates, of Chicago.