Southwest Airlines Looks to Kill Employee Biometrics Lawsuit (1)

A lawsuit challenging Southwest Airlines‘s requirement that employees clock in and out of work using finger-scanning technology should be tossed, the airline told a federal court May 3.

Four employees claim Southwest violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act by making them use a timekeeping system that scanned their fingers. The company argued that these claims must be brought in arbitration, and asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to dismiss the lawsuit.

BIPA sets requirements for the retention, collection, disclosure, and destruction of “biometric identifiers,” including fingerprints. Southwest denies that its timekeeping system actually ...