An Alabama district court recently granted dismissal of a class action asserting Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) claims brought by Illinois residents against ProctorU, Inc. in Thakkar v. ProctorU Inc., No. 2:21-cv-01565 (N.D. Ala.). The district court concluded that a choice-of-law provision contained in the terms of service and which required the application of Alabama law precluded the application of BIPA to the conduct alleged.
Court Grants in Part Dismissal of Certain Privacy Claims, Including CCPA Claim, Against The Retail Equation and Retailers
A California federal district court recently granted in part the dismissal of certain federal and state privacy claims, including a California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) claim, in Hayden v. The Retail Equation, Inc., No. 8:20-cv-01203 (C.D. Cal.). Plaintiffs in Hayden alleged that twelve retailers unlawfully shared customer data with a computer software firm, The Retail Equation (“TRE”), which in turn created “customer risk scores” to identify potentially fraudulent customer returns. This customer risk score was alleged to include information about the customers’ purchase histories, information gleaned from social media, as well as personal information, including name, government identification card or passport information, address, sex, race, and date of birth. TRE and the retailers sought dismissal of: (1) the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) claim; (2) the CCPA claim; (3) the California invasion of privacy claim; (4) the Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”) claim; and (5) unjust enrichment claim. The Court dismissed all but the invasion of privacy claim.
Court Rejects Dismissal of Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act Against Clearview in Pending Multidistrict Litigation
An Illinois federal district court recently rejected dismissal of Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) claims in In re Clearview AI, Inc., Consumer Privacy Litigation, No. 21-cv-135 (N.D. Ill.). The Clearview plaintiffs alleged that Clearview violated their privacy rights without their knowledge and consent by scraping more than three billion photographs of facial images from the internet and using artificial intelligence algorithms on the images to harvest individuals’ unique facial biometric identifiers and corresponding biometric information. Clearview sought dismissal of the BIPA claims under the First Amendment, extraterritoriality doctrine, dormant commerce clause, and BIPA’s express exemption for photographs. The court rejected these grounds, and declined to dismiss the BIPA claims.
Court Grants Dismissal of Wiretapping and Contract Claims in Putative Privacy Class Action Involving Google Privacy Settings
A California federal district court recently granted partial dismissal of privacy claims brought by several Google users in Rodriguez v. Google, LLC, No. 20-cv-5688 (N.D. Cal.). The Rodriguez plaintiffs claimed that Google engaged in unlawful wiretapping under section 631 of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”) by collecting data from third-party apps after users turned off certain data tracking in their Google privacy settings; they also claimed that Google breached a unilateral contract they had formed by selecting those privacy settings. The court disagreed, and dismissed these two claims without leave to amend.