A class action lawsuit has accused the makers of a touch screen system used extensively in U.S. restaurants to take customer orders, of violating Illinois’ biometrics privacy law for the way it scans the fingerprints of restaurant workers using the system.
On March 10, attorneys with the firms of Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz, of Chicago, and Hedin Hall, of Miami, Fla., filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court against Signature Systems.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a class of potentially thousands of Illinois restaurant workers, led by named plaintiff Ronesha Smith. According to the complaint, Smith was an employee at a Jimmy John’s restaurant in suburban Evergreen Park in 2019.
Signature Systems, based in Warminster, Penn., makes so-called point-of-sale (POS) systems used by restaurants and other similar businesses, including casinos. The systems, marketed under the PDQ brand, are used by restaurants to more quickly and accurately take customer orders, and to act as an employee time clock, on which workers punch in and out of work shifts.
According to the PDQ POS website, the system is “the #1 rated all-concept restaurant POS for over 34 years.”
When accessing the POS system or punching the clock, workers are required to scan their fingerprints to verify their identity, the complaint said.
However, the complaint asserts Signature Systems did not first secure written authorization from the workers at the restaurants and other employers before collecting their fingerprints into a database, nor allegedly did they provide certain notices required by the law to those workers.
The complaint seeks damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation, as allowed under the law. The law has been interpreted to define individual violations as each time a worker scans a fingerprint on the system.
The complaint seeks to expand the action to include employees at any Illinois business that used the Signature Systems POS system, and were required to scan their fingerprints. The complaint estimates that class could include “at least hundreds and possibly thousands of persons.”
Attorneys for the plaintiffs include Carl V. Malmstrom, of Wolf Haldenstein, of Chicago, and Frank S. Hedin, David W. Hall and Arun G. Ravindran, of Hedin Hall.