Video surveillance provider Turing has been targeted by a class action lawsuit, accusing the company of violating Illinois’ biometrics privacy law over its use of facial recognition technology in a device it markets to employers to help screen workers for COVID-19.
Attorneys from the firm of Stephan Zouras, of Chicago, filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court in July against San Mateo, California-based Turing Video Inc.
Turing has since filed to transfer the case to federal court in Chicago.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of named plaintiff Sandra Trio, identified in the complaint as an Illinois resident, who worked as a cake decorator at a Jewel-Osco store in northwest suburban Algonquin, from April 2019 to June 2021.
The complaint centers on Turing’s product, the Turing Shield.
According to the complaint, Turing has distributed the Shield product to employers in Illinois, including Jewel-Osco, to be used as a screening device for COVID-19 symptoms. Specifically, the devices measure body temperature automatically on workers’ foreheads.
According to the complaint, the Turing device’s camera “collects (workers’) facial geometry and utilizes an artificial intelligence algorithm” to recognize and analyze each user. The device then locates the worker’s forehead and measures their temperature.
According to the complaint, the device can also check to confirm the worker is wearing a mask.
The complaint asserts Turing collects users’ scanned facial geometry or other so-called biometric data in a database. According to the complaint, a Turing “product guidebook” indicates Turing can store up to 20 million face scans in its database.
However, according to the complaint, Turing scans and collects the information from workers in Illinois without having first secured written consent to do so, and without providing notices to workers concerning how the data will be used, stored, shared or ultimately destroyed.
According to the complaint, these alleged failures violated notice and consent requirements contained in the Illinois Biometric Information Protection Act (BIPA.)
The complaint seeks damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation, as allowed under the BIPA law. Individual violations have been defined in court as each time a worker scans their facial geometry, or other biometric identifiers, using such devices.
The complaint does not specify how many workers may be included in the class action. However, the complaint seeks to expand the action to include all people in Illinois who were required to scan their faces in a Turing Shield device when reporting for work.
The complaint is one of thousands that have used the BIPA law to target Illinois employers and technology vendors. Such lawsuits have presented employers and vendors with the risk of potentially many millions, or even billions, of dollars in damages, depending on the scope of the alleged BIPA violations and the number of affected workers.
The law, for instance, has spawned numerous class action lawsuits against employee timeclock vendors, such as ADP and Kronos, over accusations those companies also failed to provide notice and obtain consent from workers employed by others, who used their devices to track workers’ hours on the job.
While some, such as Kronos, continue to fight such lawsuits, others, such as ADP, have opted to settle. ADP agreed to pay $25 million, rather than face potentially much more extensive losses at trial.
Trio and other plaintiffs’ class members are represented by attorneys Andrew C. Ficzko, Ryan F. Stephan and James B. Zouras, of the Stephan Zouras firm.
Turing is represented by attorneys Erin B. Hines, Melissa A. Siebert and Ambria D. Mahomes, of the firm of Shook Hardy & Bacon, of Chicago.