Walmart Fights Employee Handprint Scan Class Action

Walmart is fighting back against a proposed biometric privacy class action lawsuit saying that it did not violate Illinois law because it did not create and preserve images of handprints collected from employees. 

According to the retail giant, Walmart’s use of handprints to give authorized employees access to its cash register system as part of their job description is not prohibited by Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act.

Walmart went on to say that the BIPA requires companies to get consent and share its policies around the collection of biometric information, but argued that the data Walmart collected did not qualify as biometric information. 

Walmart claimed that the terms “biometric information” or “biometric identifier,” as described by the Illinois law applies to an image that would have been created from the data collected about a person’s handprint, and because no such image was created, Walmart’s collection of employee handprints is not prohibited by the BIPA.

Walmart also argued that because an image was not created from employee handprint scans, that it was not legally obligated to inform employees about the company’s policies around biometric information collection.

Further attacking the BIPA violation class action lawsuit, Walmart repeatedly stresses that the employees’ description that handprints were collected was “vague and ambiguous,” and not enough to qualify a violation of the BIPA.

Walmart also claimed that the biometric info class action lawsuit should be dismissed because it concerns Walmart’s cash register system, which the company says concerns the withdrawal and depositing of currency.

According to Walmart, these characteristics of the system make it fall under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which deals with non-public personal information of consumers by financial institutions, as opposed to the Biometric Information Privacy Act.

In yet another attempt at having the employee handprint collection class action lawsuit tossed, Walmart argues that the employees’ claims exceeded the one-year statute of limitations for invasion of privacy.

The Walmart employee BIPA violation class action lawsuit was filed by Ethan Roach, a former Walmart employee who says that he worked at an Illinois Walmart location. He states that the store collected handprints from employees. Allegedly, the handprints were collected to give authorized employees access to the store’s cash register technology.

Roach claimed that Walmart violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act because the company did not gain consent from employees before collecting handprints, which Roach claims do constitute biometric privacy information.

The plaintiff also states that the company further violates the BIPA by not informing employees about the company’s policies around biometric privacy information collected.

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Roach is represented by Douglas M. Werman, Maureen A. Salas, Sarah J. Arendt, and Zachary C. Flowerree of Werman Salas PC.

The Walmart Handprint Collection Class Action Lawsuit is Ethan Roach, et al. v. Walmart Inc., Case No. 2019-CH-01107, in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, County Department, Chancery Division.

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