BIPA Becomes the Monster Employers Feared

Two momentous decisions regarding the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) recently came down from the Illinois Supreme Court. First, the Court recently ruled in Cothron v. White Castle System Inc. that a BIPA violation occurs with every scan or transmission of biometric data, i.e. a new violation accrues every time an employee uses a biometric time clock, potentially several times per work shift. Many BIPA cases have previously been resolved on the premise that an individual could only accrue one BIPA violation and the damages would be limited to the first time a biometric marker is collected in violation of the statute. Going forward, however, the law of the land has changed and the potential damages are exponentially higher.