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On September 5, 2019, the federal district court for the Northern District of Illinois issued an order that denied a motion to dismiss a class action brought under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”). Although the claims in Rogers v. CSX Intermodal Terminals, No. 19-2937, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 151135 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 5, 2019) largely survived a motion to dismiss, the district court did hand the defense bar a small—but potentially significant—victory.

The plaintiff in Rogers is a former truck driver.  His duties included visiting CSX facilities to pick up and deliver freight. The plaintiff was required to scan his fingerprints to gain entrance to the facility. The plaintiff filed a BIPA class action based on CSX’s failure to provide the required disclosures before collecting his fingerprints and to maintain a publicly available policy on CSX’s retention of biometric data. The complaint also alleged that CSX’s violations were intentional and reckless, an allegation which if proven would result in a $5,000 per violation penalty. …
Continue Reading A BIPA Defense Victory—If You Squint

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This blog post is the third in a series of Q&A posts following Dykema’s February 27, 2019 webinar on the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”). The statute takes effect on January 1, 2020–which is less than six months away. Please feel free to reach out to us if you have a unique question or would like to discuss in detail how the CCPA may apply to you.

You may see our first and second posts here and here.

Thanks for reading!…

Continue Reading February 27, 2019, CCPA Webinar Q&As: Private Claims Under the CCPA

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Over the last few months, we have been presenting and reporting on the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the county’s first comprehensive state law designed to give consumers significant control over the personal data that companies collect. Not to be outdone, New York is working on data privacy legislation that imposes even heavier burdens on companies that collect consumer information.

The proposed New York Privacy Act (NYPA), Senate Bill S5642, sponsored by Democrat Kevin Thomas, has not yet been passed. If it passes in its current form, however, it would impose the strictest requirements in the country relating to companies’ collection, maintenance, use, and disclosure of consumer information. …
Continue Reading New York Data-Privacy Proposal More Stringent than California’s CCPA

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April was another busy month for legislative activity on the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), following a very busy February [see our prior post here]. A proposed sweeping revision to the CCPA, AB 1760, was withdrawn, while three key amendments, AB 25, AB 873, and AB 874, are up for a floor vote. Meanwhile, SB 561, which greatly expands the private right of action under the CCPA, is now in the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Suspense File awaiting a May 17, 2019 deadline for a vote as to whether it makes it out of the Suspense File. …
Continue Reading CCPA Watch: Proposed Sweeping Overhaul Withdrawn, Three Amendments Providing Key Clarifications Remain Pending

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This blog post is the second in a series of Q&A posts following Dykema’s February 27, 2019 webinar on the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”).  We received questions both before and during the webinar, and over the coming weeks we will be posting our responses. We will answer the most commonly-asked questions first, so please stay tuned if you don’t see your question in our first few posts. And, of course, please feel free to reach out to us if you have a unique question or would like to discuss in detail how the CCPA may apply to you.

You may see our first post here.

Thanks for reading!…

Continue Reading February 27, 2019 CCPA Webinar Q&As: Third-Parties & Due Diligence

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Data privacy litigation is not a new frontier. The Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) has provided a private right of action for the improper collection of biometric information from Illinois citizens without consent since 2008. Even so, employers and businesses alike were caught off-guard when plaintiffs began filing class actions complaints alleging BIPA violations in 2015. Defendants scored early victories in these cases, as evidenced in the Second District Appellate Court opinion finding that actual harm, and not merely a procedural violation, must be alleged to state a claim under the Act. That ruling placed the viability of private suits under BIPA in serious doubt—because actual harm from an improper collection of biometric information is not easily pled. But then in January 2019, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed the defendant-friendly intermediate appellate ruling and held that mere procedural violations of BIPA standing alone were sufficient to withstand a motion to dismiss. That ruling breathed new life into this pattern litigation, as recent docket filings show. …
Continue Reading Is the Illinois Legislature Rethinking BIPA?

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This blog post is the first in a series of Q&A posts following Dykema’s February 27, 2019 webinar on the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”). We received questions both before and during the webinar, and over the coming weeks we will be posting our responses. We will answer the most commonly-asked questions first, so please stay tuned if you don’t see your question in the first one or two posts. And, of course, please feel free to reach out to us if you have a unique question or would like to discuss in detail how the CCPA may apply to you.

Thanks for reading! …
Continue Reading February 27, 2019 CCPA Webinar Q&As: Out-of-State, B2B, and GLBA-Covered Businesses

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The fallout from the Illinois Supreme Court’s January 25, 2019, opinion in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp., 19 IL 12316, continues. Rosenbach settled the dispute of who qualifies as an “aggrieved person” under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”), and in doing so opened the floodgates for this litigation to proliferate. The immediate result was a sharp increase in the filing of BIPA class actions as well as the lifting of stays of the numerous cases pending that were awaiting the Rosenbach ruling. …
Continue Reading All Stop: Ruling on the Applicability of Exclusion to BIPA Claims Delayed

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February was a busy month for those monitoring the latest developments with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). After the month kicked off with a series of California Attorney General Informational Sessions, the California State Assembly’s Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee conducted a hearing with testimony from interested parties, including Alastair Mactaggart (the architect of the initiative that led to the enactment of the CCPA), representatives from the California Attorney General’s Office, public interest groups, and industry groups. This hearing also coincided with the introduction of new proposed amendments to the CCPA that would, among other things, require businesses to disclose an estimate of what they paid or received for the sale of consumer data. The month culminated with the introduction of a Senate Bill that would greatly expand the reach of the CCPA by, among other things, granting consumers a private right of action for all CCPA violations and not just data breach violations. …
Continue Reading CCPA Watch – February Marked by Heavy Legislative Activity, Proposal to Expand Private Right of Action under the CCPA

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On Friday, January 25, 2019, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s Office held the fourth of its six public forums in connection with its rulemaking process for the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”). The purpose of the open forum, which was held in Los Angeles at the Ronald Reagan State Building, was to provide an initial opportunity for the public to participate in the CCPA rulemaking process. The formal rulemaking process is scheduled to begin later this year.

As noted in a prior Firewall blog post, the recently-enacted CCPA grants California consumers the right to know what information companies collect about them, the right to “opt out” from allowing companies to sell their personal information, the right to demand that companies delete collected information, and the right to receive equal service even if consumers exercise their “opt out” right. As required by the CCPA, the Attorney General must adopt its regulations on or before July 1, 2020. Businesses, however, must comply with the CCPA even before then, starting on January 1, 2020. …
Continue Reading Different Viewpoints Represented at the Latest California Attorney General’s Office Public Forum on the California Consumer Privacy Act