Another class action lawsuit accusing a company of violating a biometric privacy act has been filed in St. Clair County Circuit Court.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of plaintiff, Jamie Brandt, against CSL Plasma, a company she worked for from 2018 to 2019. The complaint does not detail on what date she joined or left the company.
CSL Plasma is accused of violating the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), with claims it took fingerprint scans of Brandt for wage and hour purposes. The company is accused of the unlawful collection, use, and storage of the information.
According to the complaint, Brandt was exposed to "serious and irreversible harm" and the information gathered was allegedly improperly disclosed to a third party vendor.
Brandt claims the defendant did not obtain a written release and did not detail how long the information would be held.
The complaint was filed by attorneys from Peiffer, Wolf, Carr and Kane, a St. Louis law firm that has filed several other similar BIPA class action lawsuits in St. Clair County Circuit Court.
Under BIPA, companies that collect information must inform the individual, reveal the purpose, detail the length of time it will be stored, and obtain a written release.
A Supreme Court ruling in January is believed to have led to an increase in actions against companies. The court found in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corporation that a plaintiff has standing to sue without alleging any "actual injury,"
Multiple class-action lawsuits alleging biometric privacy have been filed, mostly against employers collecting information on wage and hours. Most are pending, but a number were settled for amounts ranging from $150,000 and $1.5 million, according to a post on the site of the law firm, Wilson and Strawn.