In what is believed to be the first jury verdict related to Illinois’ strict biometrics privacy law, a $228 million judgment has been entered against BNSF Railway in a class-action lawsuit over the railroad’s collection of fingerprint data.
“This is the first example of a jury standing up and saying, yes, this is important information that’s highly sensitive and worth protecting,” said David Gerbie, an attorney representing the truck driver who brought the suit.
In the federal lawsuit, Richard Rogers, a truck driver for a third-party company, said BNSF requires drivers to use fingerprints and “related biometric information” to access the railroad’s intermodal facilities. But the railroad failed to get written consent before collecting and storing biometric information and failed to disclose in writing the purpose for which it was collecting and storing the data, violating Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act, he said in the suit.
