Workforce Bulletin

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday®: This week, we’re looking at recent state-level changes and legal trends that have varying degrees of impact on employers.

A recent decision from the Northern District of Illinois highlights new legal hurdles for employers using AI-powered video interview technologies under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), 740 ILCS 14/15. 

In Deyerler v. HireVue, initially filed over two years ago in January 2022, a class of plaintiffs alleged that HireVue’s AI-powered facial expression and screening technology violated BIPA.  According to the complaint, HireVue collected, used, disclosed, and profited from “biometric identifiers” without complying with the requirements of BIPA.  In a published decision, issued February 26, 2024, the court largely denied HireVue’s motion to dismiss, allowing most claims to proceed, and addressed several legal questions relevant to AI hiring tools and the use of video interviewing software. 

In its decision, the court first considered HireVue’s argument that the court lacked personal jurisdiction because HireVue has no meaningful corporate presence in Illinois and the applicable software was not developed in Illinois.  The court rejected that argument and found that plaintiffs sufficiently pleaded personal jurisdiction by alleging that HireVue marketed and sold its software to at least one company headquartered in Illinois, and the HireVue software was used to capture at least one of the plaintiff’s biometric identifiers.

As previously noted, the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) has invited a great deal of litigation, often resulting in interpretations favorable toward plaintiffs. As a result, we advise employers who use biometric technology in Illinois workplaces to adhere carefully to their obligations under BIPA. While that advice won’t change, employers operating in the health care sector can take some – though not too much – comfort in a recent ruling that limits their exposure under this law.

In Mosby v. Ingalls Memorial Hospital, the Illinois Supreme Court delved ...

On February 2, 2023, the Illinois Supreme Court filed an opinion in Jorome Tims v. Black Horse Carriers, Inc., holding that Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) is subject to a single, five-year statute of limitations period.

Increasingly companies are using third-party digital hiring platforms to recruit and select job applicants.  These products, explicitly or implicitly, promise to reduce or eliminate the bias of hiring managers in making selection decisions.  Instead, the platforms grade applicants based on a variety of purportedly objective factors.  For example, a platform may scan thousands of resumes and select applicants based on education level, work experience, or interests, or rank applicants based on their performance on an aptitude test – whatever data point(s) the platform has been ...

As we previously reported, since 2017 employees have filed dozens of employment class actions claiming violations of Illinois’ 2008 Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”). In short, BIPA protects the privacy rights of employees, customers, and others in Illinois against the improper collection, usage, storage, transmission, and destruction of biometric information, including biometric identifiers, such as retina or iris scans, fingerprints, voiceprints, and scans of face or hand geometry. Before collecting such biometric information, BIPA requires an ...

Employers continue to incorporate the use of biometric information for several employee management purposes, such as in systems managing time keeping and security access that use fingerprints, handprints, or facial scans.  Recently, Illinois state courts have encountered a substantial increase in the amount of privacy class action complaints under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”), which requires employers to provide written notice and obtain consent from employees (as well as customers) prior to collecting and storing any biometric data.  Under ...