A new class action lawsuit accuses parking and logistics services provider SP Plus Corporation of violating Illinois' biometric privacy law in the way the company scan people's faces through automated kiosks located at entry gates at parking garages in Chicago and potentially elsewhere in Illinois.
Illinois resident Benjamin Lewis, filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of himself and others against the Chicago-based SP Plus Corporation. According to the complaint filed in Cook County Circuit Court on Dec. 12, SP Plus is accused of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) for alleged improper facial recognition screening practices used at its facility.
SP Plus Corporation is an American provider of parking facility management services providing mobility, parking management, ground transportation and remote baggage check-in. It currently operates nearly 3000 parking lots and garages across the United States and Canada.
SP joins United Airlines and others alike facing multiple BIPA violations in similar biometric lawsuits in courts in Illinois, accusing the companies of improper customer face scans.
This most recent lawsuit contends SP Plus violated BIPA law by allegedly failing to obtain consent from customers, and by allegedly failing to provide BIPA law notices explaining the need to scan visitor faces and how the company might use the stored facial scans, before scanning customers' faces.
According to the complaint, Lewis and his wife entered an SP Plus managed parking facility in their vehicle. Lewis' wife was driving. At the ticket kiosk, the Lewis' wife pressed a button on the kiosk to obtain a parking ticket and lift the barrier gate to enter the parking lot.
Allegedly without their knowledge, cameras used a scanning system to capture an image of the driver. The system then allegedly used the image to extract and store unique biometric data.
When Lewis returned days later to pick up his vehicle, he was prompted at the exit kiosk to present his ticket to pay for his parking.
When the ticket was rejected, Lewis went to an SP Plus employee and was allegedly told the kiosk had rejected his payment attempts his face did not match his wife's face scan collected days prior.
Lewis contends in his complaint that he and his wife were unaware the kiosk was using biometric scanning software. As the basis for the class action lawsuit, under the BIPA law, SP was first required to obtain consent and provide Lewis with notices before taking any photo and scanning his wife's face.
SP Plus allegedly did not comply with BIPA law. Further, the suit contends, SP Plus profited through the use of the biometric identifiers it captured using automated kiosks to reduce labor costs.
This class action lawsuit is just one of 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, 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 SP Plus could face damages potentially amounting to many 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 Myles McGuire, Paul T. Geske and Colin Primo Buscarini of the firm of McGuire Law P.C., of Chicago.