Roundy’s Class Action Challenges Use of Fingerprinting to Track Work Hours

Roundy’s Supermarkets Inc. and Roundy’s Illinois LLC d/b/a Mariano’s are facing a class action lawsuit challenging their policy of requiring employees in Illinois to clock in and out of their work shifts by swiping an identification card and scanning their fingerprints.

Plaintiff Norman Baron alleges this policy violates the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which obligates Roundy’s to first obtain a written release from the individuals as a condition of their employment in order to collect and store their biometric data.

BIPA recognizes certain protections for employees’ biometric data in order to protect their privacy rights, according to the Roundy’s class action lawsuit.

“BIPA further obligates Roundy’s to inform its employees in writing that a biometric identifier or biometric information is being collected or stored; to tell its employees in writing for how long it will store their biometric fingerprint data or information and any purposes for which biometric information is being captured, collected, and used; and to make available a written policy disclosing when it will permanently destroy such information,” Baron asserts in the Roundy’s class action lawsuit.

Baron says that BIPA makes these requirements a precondition to the collection or recording of biometric information, including fingerprints.

“The State of Illinois takes the privacy of biometric data seriously,” the Roundy’s biometric data class action lawsuit says. “There is no realistic way, absent surgery, to reassign someone’s biometric data.”

“A person can obtain a new social security number, but not a new fingerprint, which makes the protection of, and control over, biometric data particularly important – particularly given the increasing use of biometric information or identifiers in the stream of commerce and financial transactions,” Baron continues in the Roundy’s class action lawsuit.

Baron accuses Roundy’s of fingerprinting Illinois employees without obtaining the legally-required release and without making the required disclosures about the collection, use, storage or destructions of biometric data. He says the Roundy’s defendants “have taken the rather invasive, and coercive step” of requiring its employees to be fingerprinted, and then using the data to track employee work time.

According to the Roundy’s biometric data class action lawsuit, Baron worked as a food server in a Mariano’s supermarket in Illinois from 2013 to 2016. During this time, he says he was required to scan his finger when clocking in and out of work. He says this requirement was not a condition of employment because it was not imposed until after he had accepted the job offer.

By filing the Illinois biometric data class action lawsuit, Baron seeks to represent himself and a proposed Class of Roundy’s employees in Illinois who were subject to fingerprinting or finger scanning when clocking in or out of work.

Baron seeks statutory damages, injunctive relief, and reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs.

Baron is represented by Ilan Chorowsky and Mark Bulgarelli of Progressive Law Group LLC.

The Roundy’s Supermarket Fingerprint ID Class Action Lawsuit is Norman Baron v. Roundy’s Supermarkets Inc., et al., Case No. 1:17-cv-03588, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.