Class Action Claims Oldcastle Services Scanned Employees’ Fingerprints in Violation of Privacy Law

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A proposed class action claims Oldcastle Services, Inc. has overstepped an Illinois privacy law by collecting workers’ fingerprints without first providing statutory disclosures and obtaining consent to do so.

According to the case, Oldcastle requires employees to scan their fingerprints whenever they clock in and out of its time-keeping system yet has failed to comply with the requirements of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), a law that governs the collection and use of state residents’ biometrics, such as fingerprints, by private entities.

More specifically, the lawsuit claims the building materials company has failed to notify workers that their biometric information will be collected, obtain written consent to capture and store the data, maintain the data in a “sufficiently secure manner” and publish a publicly available retention schedule for how the biometric information will be destroyed. Per the suit, Oldcastle’s workers have been deprived of protected privacy rights despite the “increasingly insecure” nature of the world.

“Plaintiff and class members have not been notified where their fingerprints are being stored, for how long Oldcastle will keep the fingerprints, and what might happen to this valuable information,” the complaint asserts.

The lawsuit says the plaintiff, who worked at the defendant’s Sauget, Illinois lawn and garden facility, and other employees were required to scan their fingerprints each time they clocked in and out of the defendant’s job sites. As part of this process, the workers’ fingerprints were collected and stored in a database and associated with their personal identifying information, such as names and addresses, the complaint relays.

The case claims the defendant stores its employees’ biometric data “in a manner less secure” than it stores other types of sensitive data, such as workers’ Social Security numbers. Per the suit, employees’ personal information is stored on computer systems with “demonstrably more security” than Oldcastle’s fingerprint-scanning devices and in more secure physical locations. Oldcastle’s conduct, according to the case, “is at best negligent and at worst reckless.”

The lawsuit, which was recently removed from St. Clair County, Illinois Circuit Court to the state’s Southern District Court, looks to cover anyone whose biometric data was collected or stored by the defendant in Illinois.

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