2022 has been a record year for Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) litigation. Since its enactment in 2008, BIPA has been one of the most litigated privacy-related laws with some of the highest penalties. However, it wasn’t until last
Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) is considered the most comprehensive law governing the processing of biometric data. Passed in 2008, BIPA sets out requirements for private entities, including employers, that collect, use, store, and share biometric information. It’s also one of the most popular class action suits today – hundreds, if not thousands of cases have been filed in recent years – and there is no sign that the litigation is slowing down.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals last week reversed the district court’s approval of a settlement and settlement class in the consolidated consumer class action arising from Target Corporation’s 2013 security incident. This decision provided a new perspective on a persistent dilemma in the evolving law of data breaches: how to handle data breach victims whose data was compromised but not misused, and therefore they cannot show concrete monetary harm. Here, that issue has at least temporarily derailed a multi-million settlement of the last major lawsuit arising out of Target’s high-profile incident.
On April 11, 2016, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by the Eastern District of Virginia that two Commercial General Liability (“CGL”) insurance policies required an insurer cover the defense of a medical records company in a class-action claim relating to alleged failure to secure patients’ medical records.[1]
In November of 2015, the English High Court in London approved a Group Litigation Order (“GLO”) allowing employees of one of the United Kingdom’s largest supermarket chains to join the pending action.
A new German law, which grants authority to the country’s consumer and business associations to enforce compliance with data protection laws, goes into force on February 24, 2016. A representative of the German Ministry of Justice pointed out that the new enforcement powers are specifically aimed at foreign companies having their headquarters or operating from outside Germany, including the U.S.