A disability services provider argued its government contract made it exempt – the court disagreed
An Illinois appeals court ruled that holding a government contract does not shield employers from biometric privacy claims over employee fingerprint data.
The Appellate Court of Illinois, Third District, issued its decision on April 28, 2026, in a case that could force employers across the state to rethink how they handle worker biometric information, particularly when sharing it with payroll vendors.
The dispute involved Cornerstone Services, Inc., a corporation that provides support to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Illinois. Cornerstone receives funding from the Illinois Department of Human Services, with government payments accounting for 60% to 73% of its annual revenue – more than $23 million a year during the period in question.
Tiara Thomas, a former Cornerstone employee who worked at the company from 2020 to 2022, filed a class action alleging that Cornerstone tracked employee time on the job through the use of a fingerprint-scanning time clock. She alleged the company had collected and stored employee fingerprints for timekeeping purposes since around 2008 and had employees sign a consent form related to its biometric data collection policy. The problem, according to her complaint, was that the form never told employees their fingerprints would be disclosed to Automatic Data Processing, the third-party vendor Cornerstone used to...
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