The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday held the state’s biometric privacy law allows complainants to bring claims within five years of an alleged violation, potentially increasing employer exposure to liability under the statute.
The decision is the first of two highly anticipated rulings from the state’s high court in 2023 on the scope of liability for entities using biometric technology under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act.
The high court reversed in part an appellate ruling that said a one-year statute of limitations period applied to some claims under the statute and a five-year period applied to other claims.
Applying two different time limitations to different sections of the law “would create an unclear, inconvenient, inconsistent, and potentially unworkable regime as it pertains to the administration of justice for claims under the Act,” Justice P. Scott Neville Jr. wrote for the court.
The state legislature’s policy concerns are accomplished by applying a longer limitations period, he wrote.
Still to come is the court’s ruling in Cothron v. White Castle System Inc., where the court will decide whether workers have separate claims for each swipe of their fingerprints into the company’s timekeeping system or just a single claim for the initial scan.
The high court’s ruling keeps alive a case in which Jorome Tims alleged...
Published on April 28, 2026 In a determined effort to protect the reputation of one of Africa’s most iconic wildlife destinations, Kenya’s Tourism Regulatory Authority has strongly denied false cl...