EDWARDSVILLE — Two employees of Integrity Healthcare of Alton have filed a class-action lawsuit alleging violations of the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act.
Janet Siria and Takara Martin claim they were required to record their hours worked by scanning their hands on a biometric time clock system, according to the suit, filed April 9 in Madison County Circuit Court. They accuse Integrity Healthcare of storing, using, and transferring their unique biometric hand geometry scan identifiers without following the detailed requirements of the law.
The Biometric Information Privacy Act forbids private companies from collecting, storing or using such identifiers without strict and informed consent procedures.
Integrity allegedly didn't provide Siria and Martin with any written documents that said they were collecting, retaining, or disclosing the information from their hand scans before or after they were required to use such a time reporting system, the suit says. Nor did the company obtain any written consent to do so from either plaintiff, the complaint alleges.
They seek to represent a class of more than 75 workers who scanned their hands from April 9, 2015 up until now without first signing a release.
They're asking the court for monetary damages as a result of the violation and attorney fees to cover the cost of litigation. They also want to prevent the company from further violations of the law.
Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys at Werman Salas in Chicago and Peiffer Wolf Carr & Kane in St. Louis.
Madison County Circuit Court case number 202O-L-516