Employee Timekeeping System Is Unlawful Under Ill. BIPA, Alleges Class Action
A Chicago-area child care agency violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act by using an employee timekeeping system that includes the dissemination of biometrics to third parties, such as data storage vendors and payroll services, alleged Evilin Cortez’s class action…
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Monday (docket 1:24-cv-01589) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. The Little Achievers Learning Center's system stores and repeatedly uses employees’ biometrics each time they clock in or out for their jobs, said the complaint. Cortez relied on her employer “to not only provide a lawful and legally compliant system, but to also disclose all material information regarding the technology and system, including retention, destruction, and dissemination policies,” it said. Before taking possession of Cortez’s biometrics through its timekeeping system, Little Achievers didn’t inform her in writing that her biometrics “were being collected, stored, used, or disseminated,” nor did it publish any policy “specifically about the collection, retention, use, deletion, or dissemination of biometrics,” it said. To this day, the child care worker is unaware of the status of her biometrics obtained by her employer, which hasn’t informed her whether it still retains her biometric information, and if it does, for how long it intends to retain such information without her consent, it said. To the extent Little Achievers is still retaining Cortez’s biometrics, “such retention is unlawful,” said the complaint. Cortez wouldn’t have provided her biometric data to her employer or used its biometric timekeeping technology had she known that her information would remain with the employer “for an indefinite period or subject to unauthorized disclosure,” it said.