A federal judge has dismissed a class action that accused Amazon Web Services of deploying its technology for the Wonolo job application software in violation of a state biometric privacy law.
Last September, attorneys with the firms of Stephan Zouras and Romanucci & Blandin, both of Chicago, filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court against AWS, claiming Wonolo’s use of facial scans didn’t comply with the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. The company that operates Wonolo is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which asserts AWS supports Wonolo’s operations by hosting Wonolo data and providing Wonolo with access to the AWS image-recognition program, Rekognition.
AWS removed the complaint to federal court, where on May 17 U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklo granted the company’s motion to dismiss the complaint.
The lawsuit centers on claims of named plaintiff Cynthia Redd, who said she used Wonolo in May 2020 to find temporary work, accepting several jobs, and scanning her face through Wonolo at various job sites to verify her identity and track work hours. She alleged these scans violated her rights and those of other workers under BIPA and claims AWS was required to first get workers’ written consent and provide notices concerning how the face scans would be stored, used, shared and ultimately destroyed.
Redd sought to remand her complaint to Cook County, arguing she’d only pleaded procedural BIPA violations, which meant she lacked the legal subject matter standing to sue in federal court. By contrast, different standards in Illinois state court mean Redd and other plaintiffs do not need to demonstrate they were ever actually harmed in any concrete way to sue under the BIPA law in Cook County or other state courts in Illinois, under rulings from the Illinois Supreme Court.
In arguing for dismissal, AWS challenged the matter of personal jurisdiction, to prevent the case from being sent back to Cook County court, which is generally recognized as more friendly to plaintiffs. AWS asserted it cannot be sued under the Illinois law, because it doesn't really do business in Illinois.
Bucklo said courts can decide which issue to analyze first, and she chose the AWS argument “because a ruling for AWS on personal jurisdiction grounds would obviate the need to consider the remand motion entirely.”
Bucklo further explained that although a plaintiff doesn’t need to establish personal jurisdiction in initial pleadings, when a defendant challenges whether such jurisdiction exists, the burden of establishment falls on the plaintiff. She further said Redd failed to make such a showing because she didn’t establish a link between AWS and Illinois beyond her residency.
“Aside from registering to do business in Illinois, the only alleged link between AWS and Illinois runs through Wonolo,” Bucklo wrote. “It is possible for a defendant to establish the requisite contacts via a third party so long as the defendant itself targets the forum through that third party, but allegations to that effect are absent here. The allegations here reveal only that AWS provided its Rekognition technology to Wonolo, which then used that technology in Illinois. That is the type of ‘random, fortuitous, or attenuated’ contact that the Supreme Court has cautioned cannot give rise to personal jurisdiction.”
Without reaching that minimum standard, Bucklo added, Redd isn’t entitled to her request of limited jurisdictional discovery. Bucklo granted the motion to dismiss on the grounds of lack of personal jurisdiction and denied as moot Redd’s motion to remand the complaint. She did not address AWS’ motion that Redd failed to state a claim.
AWS has been represented by attorney Ryan Spear, and others with the firm of Perkins Coie, of Seattle and Chicago.