In these latest series of blog posts focusing on privacy litigation trends, we discuss four key privacy laws that will impact U.S.-based companies in 2020-2021.  Corporate leaders, business owners, and HR professionals should be aware of these state-specific laws, which protect the privacy rights of consumers or employees, and which will be making significant waves in the privacy litigation arena.  These laws are especially relevant for companies seeking to employ Ai technology, including the AIVIA—a unique new law, which we previously discussed here.

This time, we focus on the Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”).  This law is especially critical, as it has generated an onslaught of privacy class actions in the last few years.  BIPA prohibits the unlawful collection and storing of biometric information and has very strict requirements.  It broadly defines “biometric information” to include retina scans, iris scans, fingerprints, palm prints, voice recognition, facial-geometry recognition, DNA recognition, gait recognition, and scent recognition.  There are very steep penalties for BIPA violations, which range from $1,000 to $5,000 for each violation.

As many states are looking to implement similar laws, biometric laws significantly impact the workplace specifically and businesses generally.  Companies increasingly rely on biometric technology for their employment and customer-service needs.  We have written about BIPA in great detail here, so this post focuses instead on this law’s general background and what companies need to know about BIPA right now.

Watch this 2-minute video explaining what you need to know about BIPA, how BIPA penalties work, and which states are looking to follow its lead.  We will follow these video blog posts with additional videos, which will specifically focus on various laws that the corporate leaders need to keep in mind right now.  Our next post will discuss California’s unique law, which governs chatbots.