A new class action lawsuit accuses United Airlines of violating Illinois' biometric privacy law by rolling out a system to scan people's faces, rather than their drivers' licenses or passports, when they are boarding aircraft.
Illinois resident Summer Doxie, filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of herself and others against the Chicago-based United Airlines. According to the complaint filed in Cook County Circuit Court on Nov. 22, United is accused of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) for improper facial recognition screening practices at its biometrics screening kiosks.
United Airlines joins Pandora Jewelry and others alike facing nearly identical biometric lawsuits in courts in Illinois.
United, the fourth largest airline in the world, is accused of multiple BIPA violations.
Like others, this most recent lawsuit contends United violated the law by allegedly failing to obtain prior express consent, and by allegedly failing to provide BIPA law notices about why the airline needs to scan their faces and how the airline might use the stored facial scans.
According to the complaint, Doxie boarded a United flight at O'Hare International Airport to Amsterdam in September. At that time, the complaint asserts a United employee took her photo at a kiosk, rather than ask her to scan her photo ID. United then allegedly uploaded the photo to be processed by a program which scanned her face to compare it against databases maintained by the airline and federal government, to verify her identity and confirm she was not listed as a security threat.
However, the complaint says under the BIPA law, United was first required to obtain her consent and provide her with notices before taking her photo and scanning her face.
This class action lawsuit is the latest such lawsuit reflecting a continuously growing wave of BIPA-related litigation. And like so many of the others, it carries the potential of massive payouts.
The plaintiffs are demanding a trial by jury and is seeking damages of $1,000 to $5,000 per violation, as allowed by the BIPA law, plus attorney feels and court costs.
Under the law, a business like United Airlines could face damages potentially amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars or more for these type of cases, as individual violations quickly multiply across thousands of passengers annually.
As a result of such risk, many companies have chosen to settle out of court. Facebook and Google, for instance, famously opted to pay $650 million and $100 million, respectively, to end class action lawsuits accusing them of improperly scanning people's faces in photos uploaded to their photo and media sharing platforms.
Plaintiffs have been represented by attorneys Carl V. Malmstrom and Benjamin Y. Kaufman, of Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Hertz, of Chicago and New York, and the attorneys of Bursor & Fisher, P.A., Alec . Leslie and Mas S. Roberts of New York, NY, and Christopher R. Reilly, Miami, FL.