Editor's note: This op-ed was first published at The Center Square.
A recent Illinois Supreme Court decision will likely open the floodgates to a new round of predatory lawsuits against local employers at the worst possible time for our economy.
The Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) is a law designed to protect the privacy of individuals' biometric information, such as fingerprints and facial recognition data. To be sure, protecting individuals' privacy is essential in an increasingly technological world. The BIPA law, however, is poorly written and has been abused by a cottage industry of trial lawyers to extract massive class-action verdicts even when the clients suffer no physical, emotional, or financial injuries.
The Illinois Supreme Court's recent decision to extend the time trial attorneys can bring their class action suits will trigger a new round of BIPA claims against Illinois employers of all sizes. All the worse, the plaintiffs generally secure a relatively small payout while their attorneys rake in tens of millions. For example, in a 2021 BIPA case, the attorneys received $97.5 Million in lawyer’s fees while their clients received just $345. This law, with a noble purpose, has degenerated into a windfall for already wealthy class-action trial attorneys.
Illinois lawmakers enacted BIPA in 2008, but it lied dormant until 2015 when plaintiffs’ lawyers discovered its business potential. BIPA provides a private right of action to a person whose fingerprint, voiceprint, hand or facial scan, or similar information is collected, used, sold, disseminated, or stored in a manner that does not meet the law’s requirements.
BIPA verdicts are soaring, getting as high as $228 million in a Cook County trial last year, and the recent annual report from the American Tort Reform Foundation named Cook County as the fifth worst "Judicial Hellhole®" in the nation. One of the most powerful lobbies in Springfield, the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, is thrilled. On the other hand, working families are paying more for goods and services as businesses raise costs to protect themselves from soaring verdicts. These developments are harming an Illinois economy already struggling with inflation.Illinois Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA) is a grassroots network working for more fairness in our civil justice system. We urge state lawmakers to reform BIPA to focus more on protecting individuals' private biometric information and less on securing massive fees for trial attorneys. CALA also strongly encourages anyone doing business in Illinois to understand and comply with BIPA if they are collecting or using biometric identifiers such as fingerprints, retina scans, and scans of hands of face geometry.