Amazon, Ford Prying Into Family Medical Data Sparks Novel Suits

Amazon.com Inc. and Ford Motor Co. are allegedly asking job applicants to disclose family medical histories, breathing life into an old, rarely used Illinois privacy law, and employers are taking notice.

It’s a novel twist on a law meant to prevent companies like Ancestry.com, 23andMe Inc., Color Health Inc., and GeneDx LLC from selling the genetic data they capture to health or life insurance companies without written consent from consumers.

The Illinois Genetic Information Protection Act (GIPA) has been in effect for decades, but it’s rarely been used. Now a new type of GIPA claim is ...