By Avi Gesser, David Popkin, and Michael Washington

Until recently, biometric privacy was a niche area of the law that had little application to most companies.  But with the rapid growth in commercial biometric data collection, including voice samples, fingerprints, retina scans, and facial geometry, as well as some recent developments in the applicable case law, it’s probably time for companies to start paying attention.  Indeed, one of our top privacy law predictions for 2019 was a judicial expansion of the notion of harm, which happened quicker than we anticipated in the context of gathering biometric data.

On January 25, 2019, the Illinois Supreme Court decided Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, 2019 IL 123186 (PDF: 61.7 KB), unanimously finding that plaintiffs could bring a private cause of action for violations of the notice and consent requirements of the state’s biometric privacy law without any showing of harm.  In Six Flags, a mother sued the owner of a theme park on behalf of her teenaged son after he was fingerprinted in connection with the purchase of a season pass to the park.  Neither the son nor the mother consented in writing to the taking of the fingerprint or signed any written release. Further, the park did not provide any documentation about their retention schedule or guidelines for retaining and then destroying the data.  The court found that individuals possess a right to privacy in and control over their biometric identifiers. Continue reading →