White Castle Hit with Class Action Over Alleged Violations of Illinois Biometric Privacy Law

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A proposed class action filed in early December 2018 and removed to Illinois federal court alleges White Castle and its employee database provider, Cross Match Technologies, overstepped state biometric privacy law.

According to the lawsuit, the defendants violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by scanning and storing employees’ fingerprints for payroll purposes without informing workers in writing of the purpose and length of time their fingerprints would be collected, stored, and disseminated. Further, the defendants, the case says, failed to provide employees with both a publicly available retention schedule outlining the specifics of the permanent destruction of their biometric data and a written release.

The case argues that the defendants’ alleged BIPA violations put White Castle employees at an increased risk of identity theft.