Biometric Privacy Class Action Cases Revived by Illinois Court

An Illinois appeals court on Wednesday revived two class-action complaints from healthcare workers who claimed their employers’ use of hand-scanning timeclocks violated the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act.

A Williamson County judge had found that the timeclocks’ use fell under an exemption for information collected for healthcare reasons under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

But an affidavit from the healthcare management company’s CEO did not include sufficient documentation to support her claims, the higher court ruled in sending the cases back to the circuit court.

The affidavit frequently referred to “punch data” generated when workers scanned their hands ...