Video Screening Co. HireVue Illegally Collected Illinois Job Applicants’ Facial Scans, Class Action Alleges [UPDATE]

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Online video interview platform HireVue faces a proposed class action over its alleged practice of collecting job applicants’ biometric information without first providing statutory disclosures and obtaining informed consent.

According to the lawsuit in Cook County, Illinois Circuit Court, HireVue uses an algorithm to collect and analyze the facial geometry of a job applicant during a video interview and assess their “cognitive ability, personality traits, emotional intelligence, and social aptitude.” The lawsuit alleges, however, that the defendant has failed to satisfy the disclosure and consent requirements of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), a state law designed to prevent the unauthorized collection of consumers’ biometric data, including facial geometry scans.

Per the suit, HireVue failed to provide certain disclosures regarding its data collection and retention practices and obtain job applicants’ written consent before collecting, storing and disseminating their private biometric data. The case claims HireVue failed to satisfy BIPA requirements even though doing so is “straightforward and may be accomplished through a single, signed sheet of paper.”

The lawsuit explains that HireVue tells its customers, i.e., prospective employers looking to fill open positions, that its video platform can collect “thousands of data points” during each job candidate’s interview. HireVue has allegedly represented that facial expressions make up 29 percent of a job applicant’s “employability score.”

The case alleges that the information collected by HireVue in the course of a video interview is “exactly the type of information regulated by [the] BIPA”—namely, consumers’ facial geometries.

According to the suit, HireVue has failed to inform job candidates prior to their interviews that their biometrics will be captured, collected or otherwise obtained, and secure their consent to collect the data. Moreover, HireVue ran afoul of the BIPA by failing to publish a publicly available retention policy outlining how long consumers’ biometric data will be stored, the lawsuit alleges.

The case further claims that HireVue unlawfully profited from Illinois residents’ biometric data in that it was paid by its clients for the use of its software.

The plaintiff, an Illinois resident who applied for a job with Varsity Tutors through the defendant’s platform in September 2019, says that she remains to this day unaware of the status of the private biometric data collected by HireVue. Per the case, HireVue violated the plaintiff’s “substantive state rights to biometric information privacy” by failing to comply with the BIPA.

The lawsuit looks to cover anyone whose biometrics were captured, collected, received through trade or otherwise obtained through HireVue’s video interview software within Illinois at any time within the applicable statute of limitations period.

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