The maker of camera technology used by trucking companies and others to monitor workers while on the job has become one of the latest targets of a potentially costly class action lawsuit under Illinois' stringent biometrics privacy law.
The lawsuit claims Nauto should pay, potentially heavily, for supplying trucking companies and others with tech that scans the faces of truck drivers and other workers while they are working, to monitor their conditions and actions in real time.
The lawsuit asserts Nauto's technology violates the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) because it scans the workers' so-called "facial geometry" - a biometric identifier - without first securing consent from the worker being scanned, or providing workers with notices they claim are required by the BIPA law regarding how the face scan data will be stored, shared, used and ultimately destroyed.
The lawsuit comes as plaintiffs lawyers, particularly from the Beaumont Costales firm, have also filed a growing batch of class actions taking aim at trucking companies and other employers that utilize technology, such as has been allegedly supplied by Nauto.
Those lawsuits also level similar claims against the trucking companies.
But in the lawsuit against Nauto, the lawsuit asserts the tech vendor itself should also pay under the BIPA law.
The lawsuit against Nauto was filed on behalf of named plaintiff Daniel Norred, identified as a truck driver who worked in Illinois.
According to the lawsuit, Norred is one of many truck drivers in Illinois whose faces have been repeatedly scanned by an in-vehicle mounted camera system sold by Nauto, which allegedly allows employers to scan drivers' faces while they are working to analyze driving behavior, including whether the driver may be drowsy or inattentive while driving.
From this information, employers can allegedly create a score on which to grade their drivers.
The lawsuit asserts Nauto never secured consent or provided notice to Norred or other drivers before employers began using the face-scanning cameras.
The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring Nauto to pay potentially massive damages of $1,000-$5,000 per violation of the BIPA law, spread across an undefined class of other truck drivers operating in Illinois whose faces may have been scanned by Nauto's cameras.
In recent rulings, the Illinois Supreme Court has interpreted the BIPA law to define individual violations of the BIPA law as each time a person's biometric identifiers are scanned without meeting the law's technical notice and consent provisions. Further, plaintiffs can demand damages dating back over the five years preceding the filing of the lawsuit.
Thus, when multiplied across potentially hundreds or even thousands of drivers, Nauto could face damages that could quickly climb into the many millions of dollars.
Lawyers who bring such lawsuits typically claim about one-third of the payouts as fees.
Norred and the potential class of additional truck driver plaintiffs are represented in the case by attorneys William H. Beaumont and Roberto L. Costales, of the Beaumont Costales firm.