Amazon Denies BIPA Allegations, Removes State Case to Federal Court
Amazon removed an April class action alleging violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) from Cook County Circuit Court to U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago, said a Tuesday notice (docket 1:23-cv-03383). The company denied it…
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violated BIPA and intends to defend the case “vigorously,” said the notice. Plaintiff Rodneka Perry, an Illinois resident, alleges Amazon possesses biometric data of applicants on its Flex job service platform without developing a publicly available retention and deletion schedule. The Amazon Flex app “captures the image data” of users and then shares the data with Amazon software programs, including Rekognition, to identify and detect and to enhance their own systems and technology, said the complaint. Amazon collected Perry’s biometric data without first informing her of the purpose and length of time for the collection and obtaining a written release from her, the complaint said. Perry claims at least $15,000 in statutory damages are in controversy based on her individual claims and could be “far greater” than that for her claims and more than $60,000 multiplied by four defendants: Amazon Logistics, Amazon.com, Amazon.com Services and Amazon Web Services.