Kohl’s Surveillance Technology and Biometrics BIPA Illinois Class Action

Kohl’s, Inc. employs surveillance technology in its stores, the complaint for this class action alleges, which captures biometric identifiers and biometric information from those who come there, including minor children. But the complaint claims that it does this without telling its customers and without obtaining their consent. The complaint brings suit under an Illinois law, the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which requires that private businesses fulfill certain requirements before collecting, storing, or using biometrics.

The class for this action is all Illinois citizens who had their biometric information or biometric identifiers collected, captured, or otherwise obtained by Kohl’s during visits to Kohl’s Illinois locations without Kohl’s first obtaining their informed written consent, as defined by BIPA.

Biometric identifiers include such things as retina or iris scans, fingerprints, voiceprints, or scans of hands or facial geometry. Biometrics are unique to individuals and cannot be changed, and they are therefore different from other identification such as driver’s licenses or credit cards which can be changed and replaced if they are stolen or illegally accessed.

The complaint alleges that Kohl’s uses surveillance technology to record the biometrics of consumers who visit their stores and to collect them in a database stored by its third-party vendor Clearview AI, Inc. (formerly Smartcheckr Corp., Inc.).

“Clearview,” the complaint alleges, “without providing any notice and without obtaining any informed written consent, has covertly scanned on-line photographs of millions of Americans and used artificial intelligence algorithms to scan the face geometry of each individual depicted in the covertly obtained facial images for the purpose of obtaining the unique biometric identifiers and corresponding biometric information of each individual.”

The complaint alleges that Clearview has put together a searchable database of these facial scans. “On information and belief,” the complaint claims, “Clearview has made its Biometric Database available to private entities, including [Kohl’s].” Also, “[o]n information and belief, [Kohl’s] obtained access to the Biometric Database in order to identify people whose images appeared in surveillance footage obtained from [Kohl’s] retail stores [] located within the State of Illinois.”

Before collecting or otherwise obtaining the biometrics of individuals in Illinois, the complaint alleges, BIPA requires private entities to do four things:

• They must tell the person in writing that the biometrics will be collected or stored.
• They must tell the person in writing of the specific purpose and length of time for which the biometrics are being collected, stored, or used.
• They must receive a written release from the person.
• They must publish a publicly-available written retention schedule and guidelines for permanently destroying the biometric data.

The complaint alleges that Kohl’s has not done these things.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Privacy
Tags: BIPA, Biometric Data, Taking/Storing/Using Biometric Data, Your Privacy