Apple’s Illinois Biometric Privacy Win Expands Compliance Tools

Companies gained a limited new edge in defending their compliance with Illinois’ biometric privacy law, following a recent state appeals court ruling that Apple Inc.’s face and finger identification tools don’t violate the statute.

Apple escaped Biometric Information Privacy Act liability because customers voluntarily used optional features like Touch ID and Face ID, their data was stored locally on their own devices, and the company didn’t collect or store that data on separate servers, the Illinois First District Appellate Court decided in late December. Apple therefore didn’t possess or control the users’ data, which would have triggered state biometric privacy ...