Kathryn Cahoy and Thea McCullough of Covington and Burling write:
An Illinois federal court has held that the state’s recent amendment to its Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) capping damages to one recovery for repeated identical violations applies to cases filed prior to its enactment. Gregg v. Cent. Transp. LLC, 2024 WL 4766297, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 13, 2024).
Last year, the Illinois Supreme Court held that a BIPA claim accrues with each biometric scan or disclosure without informed consent, and it called on the legislature to address the policy-based concerns about BIPA’s “potentially excessive” damages awards. Cothron v. White Castle Sys., Inc., 216 N.E.3d 918, 920, 929, as modified on denial of reh’g (July 18, 2023). The legislature did so, amending BIPA so that damages are available on a per-person, rather than per-scan, basis where an entity has repeatedly collected or disclosed the same biometric identifier or information from the same person in the same manner without informed consent.
Read more at Inside Class Actions.